to sit around
drinking a cup of espresso
smoking fags after fags
near a glass window,
which welcomes the afternoon sun,
flickering through the half drawn curtains.
This is her best place to drink and smoke
because all the people
who come here
seem perfectly normal, or sane
and they all sit quietly
as if afraid of making any noise.
Across the street is a book shop
wherein a man sits all day long
taking drags on his cheap fags
and expelling the smoke slowly
his face is helpless blue and vacuous
as if painted in copper sulfate
and he doesn't like the eerie silence
of the coffeehouse.
she sits quietly and drinks
the strong black coffee
nobody bothers her
she bothers nobody
as the bastard sun outside
does a mad dance like Shiva – the psychopath –
she flips through The Bell Jar,
the contours of her face fluctuating
like a jellyfish
under the halo of serpentine smokes.
All day long
she reads and smokes and drinks.
and I love the smell of tobacco
on her lips.
Govt fails to curb tobacco use despite calls for higher tax
Bibek is an undergraduate student of Civil Engineering at the Institute of Engineering, Thapathali Campus in Kathmandu.
