Jailtime - Part 12 (Section 1)

That night I went to bed feeling strangely calm, almost content. For the first time since my arrest, a small thread of comfort wound its way through the fear and uncertainty. I prayed again, asking God to protect my mother and, almost shyly, I thanked Him for Bari. The thought of having someone to talk to, even in that brutal place, felt like a lifeline. I slept better than I had in days, and when I opened my eyes the next morning, the first thing I did was search for her.

She was already awake, sitting neatly on her bed, showered and carefully applying makeup. In this harsh, filthy world, the sight of her: calm, composed, deliberate, felt almost unreal. I watched her closely, quietly admiring the way she moved, how even in a prison cell she managed to create a small pocket of dignity. For a few moments, it was as though everything around her faded. But then reality tugged me back. She still hadn’t noticed me. I felt a stab of disappointment, sharp and unexpected.

Gathering myself, I finally got down from the upper side of the bunk bed and made my way toward the showers. As I passed her bed, I managed a quiet greeting. She looked up and gave a faint smile. “Good morning,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. That single look, that soft reply, felt like sunlight breaking through a crack in the wall.

It was my fourth day in prison, and the hours dragged like lead. I spent the morning in the courtyard with Elise and a few other inmates, trying to blend into their idle conversations.

Bari wasn’t there, and for a while, I tried to push her from my mind. I listened to the chatter around me: arguments, gossip, small bursts of laughter, but my thoughts kept drifting. Despite the noise, a heavy loneliness pressed in. Surrounded by dozens of women, I felt like the most isolated person on earth.

Seven years. The number haunted me. Seven years before I could even hope for parole. How could anyone survive this without breaking apart? Everyone else seemed so settled, almost comfortable, as if this life had become normal to them.

I felt like an outsider, a stranger in a world where I didn’t belong. I missed my mother with an ache that wouldn’t let go, my dogs, their unconditional love, their warmth. And most of all, I missed Lizette and Kegan. They had been part of me for so long, but they were gone, torn away with a force that left wounds no one could see. The pain was constant, raw, like a slow, invisible bleeding. I asked God the same questions over and over: "Why, why this, why me?", but silence was my only answer.

At some point, I realized I couldn’t keep drowning in those thoughts. The grief and unanswered questions were only feeding the despair. If I didn’t start accepting that new life, it would swallow me whole.

Prison wasn’t just a place; it was a system, a world with its own rules. Every movement, every word, every privilege was controlled. There were regulations for everything: how you walked the corridors, the ten minutes you were allowed on the phone, and the single hour you were permitted in the courtyard, from ten to eleven in the morning. Inmates who refused to work stayed locked in their cells for the entire day, choosing not to work in the laundry room, the sewing or knitting rooms, or to attend any recreational classes. When ten o’clock came, they flocked to the cell gates like clockwork, shouting for the wardens to open up because it was courtyard time. If a warden took even a little too long, the shouting turned into screaming. Cell gates were yanked back and forth, metal rattling against metal, voices cursing and demanding the gates be opened: "Open the fucking gates." That one hour in the open air wasn’t a privilege to them; it was a right. It was the only break from the suffocating confinement of the cell, and they clung to it like something they were owed.

At that stage, I had not yet been assigned any work. I didn't ask why, because I was too afraid of the answer. Maybe, I thought, they would answer me: "Don't question the system, just do as you are told," or maybe they were still monitoring my adjustment. So, I stayed, and I watched and listened to it all from inside my cell: the shouting, the gate-rattling, the fury over those sixty minutes of freedom, and I felt removed from it, almost stunned by the intensity. I didn’t shout. I didn’t pull at the gate. I stood back and absorbed it in silence, trying to understand where I was and what this place demanded of me. Their anger made sense, but it also frightened me. I realised how quickly time, routine, and confinement could strip away patience, dignity, and self-control. I wasn’t angry yet. I was still in the phase of listening, observing, and bracing myself for what my sentence was going to turn me into.

Even sleep felt regulated, as if they would dictate the position of your body if they could. Breaking a rule meant punishment: no exercise in the courtyard, no visits, no television. The walls weren’t the only thing keeping you in; the rules tightened around you until you couldn’t breathe.

That same week, it was my sixth day in, and I was sitting on a wooden bench in the courtyard with a warden, talking quietly, when the unpredictable happened: the very thing I had been praying would not happen to me.

An inmate approached without warning and stopped in front of me. Before I could react, she struck me, knocking me off the bench. As I lay on the ground, she stood over me and said, “That is MY seat,” pointing at the bench. The warden did nothing. She didn’t stand up. She didn’t intervene. She didn’t even look surprised. My cheek burned as I broke down and asked to be taken back to my cell. Once the gate was locked, I asked why nothing had been done.

The answer was blunt and emotionless: "The inmate is mentally unstable, but not unstable enough to be admitted to a psychiatric facility." When I asked about laying a charge of assault, I was told it would lead nowhere because everyone knew her condition and that she was already under medical treatment.

In retrospect, I now know why I didn’t fight back. As an ex-police officer, a known lesbian, and someone convicted of murder, any reaction from me would never have been viewed as self-defence. It would have been framed as violence. One wrong move could have put my parole in jeopardy. The wardens knew that. The inmates knew it too. That moment marked the beginning of years of intimidation and victimisation, carried out with the quiet understanding that I could not afford to respond.

Outside those walls, people assume prison is comfortable, a “holiday resort.” They point to the television in every cell and the radios, convinced that the food is five-star quality. What the outside world doesn’t see is that the television in the cells wasn’t just bolted behind an iron cage: it was also a source of constant conflict. In a cell with 33 inmates from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, the majority, black inmates, effectively ruled the TV. Whoever held the remote controlled what was watched, and most fights broke out over it. Everyone wanted to see their favorite program, but the one with the remote decided which channel stayed on until lights out at 10 p.m., when the nightshift warden came to collect it. Complaints about fairness were lodged regularly, but if no agreement was reached, the cage could be unlocked by a warden, the television removed, and not returned for a week. The cage door remained locked, forcing us to watch through bars that fractured the screen. It was frustrating, chaotic even, but necessary: any object thrown at the TV could cause serious damage or injury.

Radios work only if you have batteries, and the food… well, even my dogs wouldn’t eat it. Yet still, the public screams for harsher punishment and calls for the death penalty, blind to what daily life inside actually is. On top of that, I carry a label that will never leave me: “murderer.” My crime was a moment of passion, influenced by sleep deprivation, sedatives, and alcohol. I had no intent, and yet the judge said I planned it months in advance, a claim I would swear against on the Bible itself.

Still, the label sticks. Society wants sensation, horror, and a villain, not the truth of nuance. They fail to see that not every person who commits a horrendous act is evil. Some of us are human, flawed, and capable of remorse. That misperception, that blanket judgment, is another form of punishment, one that lingers long after the gates close.

For seven years, I was belittled, threatened, and tested in ways that left me with fuckall recourse. I didn’t fight back with my fists, not at first. I survived by restraint. Later, when silence no longer protected me, I fought back with my voice. When I was told I was “playing with my parole date,” I told the Head of Prison she could take my parole and stuff it up her ass. By then, fear had already done its worst and lost its power over me.

Life had to continue, but how? Where could I even begin? Each morning, I woke to the same question, like a hammer to my chest: how does one person carry so much pain alone? How do you live with the loss of everything: your freedom, your loved ones, the life you once knew, and still face the truth of what you’ve done?

The days stretched into a slow, endless infinity. Every hour felt the same, each one ruled by a set of regulations that, on the surface, kept order, but in reality only reminded us that we were prisoners. These rules weren’t just instructions; they were a constant echo of captivity. They dictated when we ate, when we walked, and when we could breathe a little deeper, and in their repetition, they became another form of harassment. Each whistle, each locked gate, each shouted order pressed the same fact deeper into my mind: you are no longer free.

Amid this crushing routine, something unexpected began to stir inside me. Somewhere between the noise of the courtyard and the heavy silence of lock-up, I became aware of a tiny “voice.”

At first, it was just a whisper, a faint presence that followed me through the day and into the night. It wasn’t threatening, but it was persistent, like a companion I hadn’t invited. Sometimes I caught myself answering it in my mind, almost without realizing it. For a while, I wondered if I was losing my grip. Could anyone see me speaking to something invisible? Was I imagining it, or was I truly being spoken to?

It took time, but eventually I recognized the voice. It wasn’t madness. It wasn’t loneliness playing tricks on me. It was the Holy Spirit. For the first time in my life, I felt it with such clarity that I couldn’t deny it. The awareness brought an unexpected comfort; a steady, quiet certainty that I was not alone. I began to talk back, asking questions, sharing my fears, whispering silent prayers when no one was watching. And as I did, the sorrow, the loneliness, the sharp edges of my pain began to soften, even if only a little.

I wasn’t transformed overnight, but I could feel something shifting inside me. A new layer of strength was forming, quiet but real, as though the voice was teaching me to survive prison without letting it destroy me.

That afternoon, when Bari stepped into the cell, a sudden rush of warmth shot through me. Just seeing her made the walls feel less heavy. I wanted to leap from my bed to tell her everything I had been carrying, to ask her to help me untangle the chaos inside me. But I stayed where I was. I forced myself to stay calm, to hide what I truly felt. I watched her move to her bed with her usual calmness, my heart pounding in a way I could barely understand. I needed her: needed her as a confidant, a friend, maybe even something more, but fear kept me silent. So I stayed on my bed, keeping my distance, while inside me the longing only grew stronger.