I have walked down too many blocks in my city that rumble with the spit of boys who know no men
Seen daughters dodge cat calls like cats
Heard the crack of a Georgia slave master’s whip echoing four centuries later in a circle of blacks as they rap
Smell the trap in the liquor on the smile of the street as it cranes its neck to look back and check what “Home girl was workin’ with”

I’ve stumbled too many times,
trying to ignore the lisp,
the trembling hiss,
in the rattling legs of the women of this world who are scared,
with every right to be so,
to trust people,
to take the train home alone at night

But by now the lights in the funeral home have dimmed,
The casket cologned under six feet of dirt
It’s been years since the death of a woman’s worth

I’d be lying and it wouldn’t be fair of me to speak towards her character
Cause I’d be lying if I told you I remembered her
But I can tell you the exact pitch of my mother’s eyes the day she told me she’d baptize herself in dad’s blood if she could
How wood turned to gold with the bare heat from his palms upon asking him to build the family
So it would be fair of me to speak of her loyalty, of the command in her neck, and the humble in her breath

But it’s been years since her death..
It’s been years since her death.

—Miles Hodges, Death of a Woman’s Worth (via lovelylittlelegacy)

(via thestriversrow)