The Night I Was Going To Die Poem by Charles Bukowski

the night I was going to die I was sweating on the bed and I could hear the crickets and there was a cat fight outside and I could feel my soul dropping down through the mattress and just before it hit the floor I jumped up I was almost too weak to walk but I walked around and turned on all the lights and then I went back to bed and dropped it down again and I was up turning on all the lights I had a 7-year-old daughter and I felt sure she wouldn't want me dead otherwise it wouldn't have mattered but all that night nobody phoned nobody came by with a beer my girlfriend didn't phone all I could hear were the crickets and it was hot and I kept working at it getting up and down until the first of the sun came through the window through the bushes and then I got on the bed and the soul stayed inside at last and I slept. now people come by beating on the doors and windows the phone rings the phone rings again and again I get great letters in the mail hate letters and love letters. everything is the same again