When I was released from prison I was wearing a bathing suit. I have no idea whose it was. It was a January morning and freezing cold. The guards said it was the only thing they could find. I didn't believe them, and I didn’t argue. My family was still hours away with clothing, so I could either stay in a cage even longer or take what they give me and go. So I put on that strange, dirty bathing suit and a threadbare shirt. I was completely penniless. On the way out I passed by folks being brought in - just starting their incarceration journey. The wheel just kept on turning. I couldn’t bear the thought of all that lay ahead of them.  

The door opened and a wall of freezing air rushed in stealing my breath. I hesitantly stepped out into the world, and the door quickly slammed behind me. Everything was stark and immense. I couldn’t move. It felt like gravity had taken a special interest in me. I was there yet not there - layers within myself. I was an aching Russian doll. It had been 1,185 days since I’d been in the world. I was shaking from the cold but also from something vast and ungraspable. I was waiting for something to pull me back in - the feel of phantom fingers on my back. The wind was all needles. 

It occurred to me that I was hallucinating which sent further chills rushing through me. After such deep longing to be free for so long, my body must be in a cell somewhere while my mind, now eternally unmoored, imagined itself free. I had come undone at last. My chest was heaving in and out wildly. 

I had been given a map to this unfamiliar city with instructions to report to a probation office. My body somehow began moving. When I came to a traffic light I froze, crippled with doubt, looking both ways countless times before stepping ahead. The shaking never stopped. “Oh my god, oh my god…” These breathy, barely audible words kept coming out of my mouth like a chant. It was outside and inside. I didn’t know it was happening, but tears had shown up on my cheeks. I knew them by the cold whipping my face. I must have been crying for my broken sanity or my fractured soul. Not for my freedom. That didn’t seem real. Nothing was real. I didn’t even exist. Then came the dog. 

As I moved ahead in a trance, a huge, frothing dog behind a chain link fence charged at me barking madly. In that moment I knew I was real. It saw me and it let me know. In that moment, this animal gave me permission to feel my freedom for the first time. That snarling dog’s face is etched into my mind forever, beautiful beyond words. I stopped, letting its sounds of fury become a celebration. I collapsed and bawled my eyes out with no reservations right then and there. Squatting on the sidewalk beneath a rising sun, shivering and loudly crying from the center of my being, with this dog screaming at me, something indescribable shifted within me and began to let go. 

Out of the cage, but not out of the shadows

This is just a tiny glimpse into how my re-entry began. I was utterly traumatized by the years of dehumanization. Practically speaking I had nothing - no money, no vehicle, no employment, no residence. What I did have were expectations to get all of those things and quick. Failure to attain them would result in my swift return to a cage and back to the jaws of trauma. Financially I was south of zero and facing mountains of debt and fees that are required for freedom. I desperately had to piece together an impossible puzzle under a hovering axe. I’d need a miracle. 

I soon learned that despite working so hard to put my life on a positive path and feeling so on fire, eager to be an asset to my community, no one would actually see me. The world was here, and I was now forever over there. I was out of the cage, but not out of the shadows. 

At one point, I called what is advertised as an agency with resources for formerly incarcerated people. They referred me to another, who referred me to another, and so on and so on, until I was ultimately sent back to the agency I had called in the first place. I’d come full circle empty-handed. It was an ouroboros, a closed loop of futility and discouragement. There were no meaningful or realistic resources available to me. 

The hurdles of finding income and housing with a felony record are unimaginable to anyone who’s never faced them. It’s a series of humiliations. It’s a world of walls. What does exist is oftentimes predatory, exploiting our desperation - minimum wage for dangerous work and substandard housing at gouged prices. Our basic needs are weaponized against us. 

Finding and getting treatment for the trauma that all incarcerated people experience can hardly happen when so many other needs aren’t being met. Well-being goes unaddressed which compounds the suffering. It’s easy to see how someone can feel so isolated, hopeless, and like they’re endlessly climbing uphill with this massive, invisible burden. 

This systemic alienation harms not just the individual, but the entire community. If we’re willing to look, we can see these ripples everywhere. 

Sharing the spark

I found myself longing to connect with other people that could relate to what I’d experienced inside and how that continued to echo throughout my entire life. What was missing was a collective for impacted community members to gather, be authentic, and build bridges to legitimate resources. Such a group simply did not exist. That’s why the fellows of Community Spring decided to start Torchlighters Re-Entry Support. 

We are building a network for formerly incarcerated people and their loved ones, as well as the loved ones of people still behind the wall. It is a space for them to come together to share their experiences, their struggles, their triumphs, their hope, and their hearts with one another. People can genuinely connect with each other and provide emotional and practical support in a way that no other group can offer. When it comes to re-entry there is no substitute for lived experience. Justice-involved people have been discounted for far too long. They represent some of the best and brightest among us and it’s beautiful to see them sharing the spark. We should be a community that welcomes returning citizens with open arms and Torchlighters Re-Entry Support is building that future.