jake

your friend
jake
tells you about the time
he did time
in the jump.
the jump being prison.
five years.
the details are
sketchy of what
put him there, but
you know it must
have been bad,
with repeat offenses.
he tells you
about the broken
windows, the barbed
wire, how
cold it was.
the hard slab bed
and the noise,
the constant chatter
of the inmates.
grown men crying as
they lay in their cells.
the darkness
of it all.
it hasn't left him,
thirty years
later.
and when you see him
going outside
to smoke a cigarette
you can see that
a big part of him
is still
behind the walls,
the fences,
the guards
and dogs.