“Bukowski”
He quoted Bukowski knowingly to a blonde girl who thought he was reciting lyrics from a love song. It irked me—if not outright pissed me off—to hear him speak with such honesty and belief in every word, only for her to receive it so vacuously.

I gazed at the back of the couple seated two rows ahead of me on the bus. I saw the bearer of the honey-rum voice. I watched him pinch the girl’s nose playfully and recite more lyrical “love spells” from great writers. She just stared blankly and laughed at his attempts to impress.

Yet from where I sat, I couldn’t detect a sliver of pretentiousness or arrogance in his speech. He seemed a mere literary wanderer—someone who believed in the majesty of words and longed to express his ardor through the voices of literary geniuses who had grasped the essence of love and life.

He quoted words like a painter highlighting colors in an intricate Persian rug. I stared and wondered if nights spent with him, debating sublime verses and the spaces between life, would be more pleasurable than bodies colliding.

Funny—just a week later, a different man sat beside the blonde woman. I never saw him again. But reading Bukowski still reminds me of his husky, warm voice… ❤️

©️ Beatriz Esmer