“If you could be a fly on the wall and see what I see…” begins the haunting and defiant premise of Fly on the Wall: The Story of a Courageous Trans Woman – From Prison to Post by Ariyanna Lampley and Samari The Goddess. There is very little information available about the book, and beyond its brief description on Amazon, it seems to exist as one of those hidden gems waiting to be discovered. What we do know is that it tells the story of Samari the Goddess, a transgender woman who has survived the brutality of the prison system and emerged with her dignity, her artistry, and her voice intact.
The book’s title alone captures something both poetic and unsettling. To be a fly on the wall is to witness without being seen, to observe the unspoken truth of things. In Samari’s case, that truth is the reality of being a transgender woman behind bars, a world of fear, violence, and survival. Incarcerated transgender women often live in a space that denies their very identity. Many are placed in men’s prisons, where they face harassment and sexual assault. Basic medical care, including access to hormones or gender-affirming treatment, is often withheld. Even something as simple as being called by one’s chosen name can become a daily battle.
For many trans women, the prison experience becomes a microcosm of society’s larger cruelty. Incarceration doesn’t just confine the body; it attempts to crush the self. Yet Fly on the Wall seems to resist that erasure. From the little that is known, it’s clear that Samari’s story is not simply one of victimhood but of transformation. She takes the reader from prison to purpose, from silence to voice, showing that no system can truly cage a spirit determined to heal. Her story seems to echo that of countless other trans women who have faced incarceration, women who have fought to maintain their humanity in environments designed to strip them of it.
It is impossible to talk about Samari’s story without addressing the broader issue of how transgender women are treated in prisons across America. The statistics are grim. Studies show that trans women are far more likely to be incarcerated than cisgender women, often due to systemic discrimination, homelessness, or criminalization of survival behaviors. Once imprisoned, they are among the most vulnerable groups. Reports from advocacy organizations such as the National Center for Transgender Equality describe consistent patterns of abuse, ranging from denial of medical care to physical assault.
Yet amid this darkness, stories like Samari’s serve as a reminder that resilience can grow in the harshest soil. Her memoir seems to offer not only a personal confession but also a testimony of endurance. It invites readers to witness, to listen, and to imagine what it means to live one’s truth when every structure around you insists that you cannot.
There is a sense that Fly on the Wall will not just document pain but transform it into power. The title suggests that Samari’s perspective is not passive. The fly sees, understands, and finally speaks. What she reveals is not just the story of one woman’s incarceration but the broader truth of how society punishes difference. And yet, her decision to tell her story at all becomes an act of liberation.
While little is known about Ariyanna Lampley, her talent helped shape the memoir’s rhythm and structure, ensuring that her voice, raw, poetic, unfiltered, reaches beyond the walls that once confined her. Together, all these factors seem to have crafted something that is part survival narrative, part protest, part hymn to selfhood.
Available via Amazon
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