you have to die a few times before you can really live.

waking up on those mornings in the drunk tank,
busted lower lip, loose teeth, brains swimming in
a cacophony not yours, with
all those strange others swathed in rags, noisy
now in their mad sleep, with nothing for
company but a stopped-up toilet,
a cold hard floor
and somebody else's
law.

and there was always one early voice, one loud voice:
“BREAKFAST!"

you usually didn't want it
but if you did
before you could gather your thoughts
and scramble to your feet
the cell door was slammed
shut.

now each morning it's like a slow contented
dream, I find my slippers, put them on,
do the bathroom bit, then walk down the
stairway in a swirl of furry bodies, I am
the feeder, the god, I clean the cat bowls, open
the cans and talk to them and they get excited and
make their anxious sounds.
I put the bowls down as each cat moves to
its own bowl, then I refill the water dish
and watch all five of them eating
peacefully.

I walk back up the stairway to the bedroom
where my wife is still asleep, I crawl beneath
the sheets with her, place my back to the sun
and am soon asleep again.
you have to die a few times before you can really
live.

[Charles Bukowski {1920-1994} 'Breakfast' from The People Look Like Flowers at Last]