Smoking by the Window

12:09 pm

I was sitting on the sofa
by the window
I had fully opened the floor to ceiling window-door
trying to smoke out of it.

but the wind didn’t align
with my intentions.
no matter how forcefully I puffed
it came right back into the room.

after trying a few more times
I gave up.
no point in trading the comfort of the sofa to standing out in the balcony
and I started puffing straight up into the ceiling corner.

the weather outside was quite nice
with big white clouds hanging on to their ceiling.
the wind was cool and gentle, good enough to ignore
the horns and silencers on the road 14 floors down.

my cigarette was halfway done,
when I thought about my unemployed ass and then about Bukowski.
what a guy.
what a man.

what would he have thought about people burning their
eyes in front of screens
straining the necks
maybe he would have laughed seeing how addictions have changed.

would anyone read his poems
after 50 years?
would anyone take out the time to get their heads
out of VR headsets and hold a book in their hands?
feel the touch of paper against their skin?
maybe after we’ve finished destroying this planet
and concrete jungles have taken over the wooden ones,
and no trees are left to convert to pulp and print more books
old dusty books would be left as the only markers of the good old times.
with no natural paradises left
books would be the only thing left people would take sabbaticals for.

I noticed a shift in the wind
the smoke was going out now
I looked at the almost gone cigarette in my hand
what a waste.