I listened wide-eyed, stupid. Glowing by her voice in the dim light. If chocolate was a sound, it would've been Constantine's voice singing. If singing was a color, it would've been the color of that chocolate.

You're gon' have to say to your self, am I gon' believe what them fools say about me today?

it always sound scarier when a hollerer talk soft.

This woman talk like she from so deep in the country she got corn growing in her shoes.

I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it.

And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

I look deep into her rich brown eyes and she look into mine. Law, she got old-soul eyes, like she done lived a thousand years. And I swear I see, down inside, the woman she gone grow up to be. She is tall and straight. She is proud. She got a better haircut. And she is remembering the words I put in her head. Remembering as a full-grown woman.