Corrections in Ink: A Memoir

by Keri Blakinger

Coming back to the sharp corners of real life after a blurry decade of drug use is a process. No matter how much you want to start over, you are not magically a changed person as soon as you set foot in the jail and enter a world of buzz-clunk-beeps and clangs. The clack of cell keys does not teach you remorse. The clash of a steel door does not bring you redemption.

There’s something specific about not having a place where you are welcome or safe when the sun goes down.

guards are either willing to see inmates as people or they are not, and no amount of desperate small talk will change that, no matter how relaxed or how small the jail is.

The things I’d hoped would be freeing were just crushing instead.

News of the outside world is just a reminder that there is an outside world, a place where life is continuing without you.

Just because my survival seemed miraculous did not mean that I had to appreciate it.

The little things matter when you are in jail. In part, that’s because the big things don’t exist.

there is no right way to respond to torture. Experts who study solitary confinement link it to anxiety, memory problems, sleep issues, anger, and disordered thinking. Some people experience “isolation panic,” like the dark wave that swept me off my feet. Some people handle it just fine, and others deteriorate slowly.

This was not just women singing, this was women learning how to steal joy in a place built to prevent it.

I finally understood something incredibly basic about life: chance applies to you, too. If there is a chance something might occur, it actually fucking might.

I was done being gaslit into believing I needed abuse to become a better, healthier person.

For some people, privilege can be easy to doubt because at the most granular level it is tough to prove: