~Mirrors are more than a fixture on a wall made of breakable glass and pretty frames. They are a portal to someone's soul, reflecting all of their deeply hidden fears, dreams, and desires🪞~
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TARAJI
I thought that my first night sleeping in a big, warm bed with clean sheets and fluffy covers and a functioning air conditioner would bring me peaceful slumbers, but it seemed that as soon as I laid down and closed my eyes, I was plagued with nightmares about my time in prison. I had nightmares about prison even when I was still locked up, but the one that always shakes me up the most is the recurring nightmare I have about how I came to be pregnant with Sarai in the pen. It's not a fond memory, but I would go through it all again just to experience holding my daughter for the first and last time, for as soon as she was placed in my arms, it felt like she was ripped away from me to be given to someone else. Someone I don't even know, but I guess any mother is better than a jailbird. I wonder if she's out there somewhere questioning who her real mother is while I lay in bed and think about her. I wish that there weren't so many painful memories that come with my thoughts of her.
* Flashback-15 Years Ago*
Officer Reynolds and Officer Carmine roughly pushed me through the doors of Warden Cain's office quarters, damn near throwing me to the floor. Even in handcuffs I was trying to fight their hands off of me as they were forcing me down into the chair across from his desk.
Taraji: Let me fucking go! I can walk!
I spit a mouthful of blood out onto the floor, and Warden Cain just responded to my disrespect and insubordination by chuckling. My adrenaline was still racing from the fight that I had been in with Duchess and her crew. I'm probably crazy for going against 5 women, but in prison, getting jumped is better than being portrayed as a bitch. I'm nobody's bitch and I won't play pussy just to get fucked. I will never allow anybody inside or outside of these walls to punk me. Warden Cain stared at me with a sideways smirk, rubbing his goatee as his eyes flitted over my facial features. I walked away from the fight without a single scratch on me. I would have thought that these bitches would have learned to stop fucking with me after I stabbed Knuckles in the neck with a fork and punctured her carotid artery. Oh well, she shouldn't have tried to bend me over a cafeteria table in front of the whole cell block and finger me. I wouldn't be me if I allowed that. When I first came in at the age of 27, these monstrous women saw my pretty face and thought that they were going to be able to bitch me out. I'll admit that in the beginning I was fragile and fearful, but after a year of being beat up, spit on, and touched sexually against my will, I got tired of being the punching bag and I started fighting back. I'll probably be fighting for the rest of my life.
Warden Cain licked his lips as he continued to just stare at me, making me extremely uncomfortable. Everybody on the block knows that Warden Cain hand picks certain inmates to satisfy whatever sick desires he may have. The ones who consent to his sexual fantasies are treated like royalty. They're given all sorts of contraband and they do whatever they want with no consequences. He has tried many times to get me to join his harem of prison prostitutes, and my answer has been no every time. There's no price tag that can be put on my body. I'll admit that he's fine, but his thirst for power and dominance over women is extremely abusive and unattractive.
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Warden Cain: I just don't know what I'm going to do with you, Henson. Throwing you in the hole obviously has no effect on you. My guards have tased you, beaten you with batons, cut off your food, water, and shower privileges, and yet nothing works. I don't like it when you fight. The thought of a face as pretty as yours getting messed up just breaks my heart. I'm trying to protect you from yourself. You are destructive and violent. You have no sense of self control. You're going to get yourself killed in here one day.
Taraji: It wouldn't matter. My life ended the day I was sentenced. They may as well have given me the chair because I'm already dead inside. You can't help me, and you don't even want to help me. You just want to control me. That's never going to happen. Do whatever it is you think you should do, but I'm telling you right now that a person who's already in shambles can't be broken.
Warden Cain: Very well. I hate that we couldn't find common ground. Just remember that when this is all over, you asked for it.
I couldn't even begin to imagine what he was talking about until Officer Reynolds and Officer Carmine put me on top of his desk and held me down. I couldn't do anything with my hands because of the cuffs, but I kicked and screamed with everything in me as Warden Cain started to unbuckle his belt. He wrapped his belt around my neck and pulled me to the edge of his desk. No matter what happens next, I'm not going to cry. Crying is a sign of weakness, and weak women don't survive in my world, so I have to be strong. Strong women don't get taken advantage of. I just have to look at this as just another day. Because in this cage, it is just another day.
* Flashback Over*
My heart was pounding and my breathing wouldn't slow down no matter how hard I tried to make it. Still, even as I was replaying my trauma over and over again in my head, I couldn't bring myself to shed a tear. Prison made me hard. Twenty years in jail will turn the kindest, warmest heart to unbreakable ice. If I ever get the chance to see my daughter again, will she want to know the woman I've become? Will she be scared of me. Hell, I'm scared of myself. I don't know how to be gentle and handle things with care. The only way I know is hard and rough, because that's how it had to be for me for two decades. As much as I want to be apart of my daughter's life, would I be a better mother by just leaving her where she's at? I wonder if she has a ton of friends or if she's antisocial like me. Is she into cheer or ballet? Does she like art or music? Hopefully she looks only like me and nothing like her self-appointed sperm donor. Does she have my short temper and slick mouth? Or is she the complete opposite of me? Truth be told, I'm like a razor. Rough around the edges, and I hurt people when I cut them deep. I hope that if I do somehow get to meet my daughter, she doesn't catch my sharp end.
