27 weeks: Ow.

I am currently witnessing an entire self-mutilation. A prison tattoo being down by one of the girls in my bunk area. She just mixed up the ink from a pen with crushed led from a No. 2 pencil and some shampoo. Now, she is literally stabbing the girls arm with a needle one deep prick at a time. OW. It hurts just watching.

Pimp says she's done this many times - half of the tattoos on her own body were done by herself. Instead of the freehand work that most prison tats consist of, Pimp actually stencils it out first and applies the stencil on the body with deodorant.

The girl is getting her grandmother's name inked onto her forearm pretty big, from top to bottom. I'm watching her hide the pain as she curls up her toes and squeezes her fist.

One prick at a fucking time. The needle is literally being driven halfway into her flesh each time. And this is only the first layer of the outline. Pimp likes to go over it 3x to make it dark and when she colors it in, she will be using 3 needles at once to make it faster.

Now she's slapping the girl's arm and making it bleed to absorb the ink better. This is insane and yet, I can't stop myself from observing. I think I'll go to bed now.