Until you do right by me...

He laugh. Who you think you is? He say. You can’t curse nobody. Look at you. You black, you poor, you ugly, you a woman. Goddam, he say, you nothing at all.

Until you do right by me, I say, everything you even dream about will fail. I give it to him straight, just like it come to me. And it seem to come to me from the trees.

Whoever heard of such a thing, say Mr.___. I probably didn’t whup your ass enough.

Every lick you hit me you will suffer twice, I say. Then I say, You better stop talking because all I’m telling you ain’t coming just from me. Look like when I open my mouth the air rush in and shape words.

Shit, he say. I should have lock you up. Just let you out to work.

The jail you plan for me is the one in which you will rot, I say.

Shug come over to where us talking. She take one look at my face and say Celie! Then she turn to Mr.___. Stop Albert, she say. Don’t say no more. You just going to make it harder on yourself.

I’ll fix her wagon! Say Mr.____, and spring toward me.

A dust devil flew up on the porch between us, fill my mouth with dirt. The dirt say, Anything you do to me, already done to you.

Then I feel Shug shake me. Celie, she say. And I come to myself.

I’m poor, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I’m here.

-Alice Walker, The Color Purple (p.176)