The Ascetic - The Residents

Every day I go up on the mountain

Climb to the top, but I don’t know what for

It’s quiet until I hear a voice up on the mountain

It says «beware of what you want, it might want you more!»

«Ashes, my burned hut

But beautiful, like cherry

Blooming on the hill»

-One of my patients, just before he died, and just before I left the hospital

and began to travel

If he could face death so calmly, how could I face life with so much doubt?

Now, I can sit on the side of a mountain and watch the shadows slowly filling

the valley floor, but not without the doubts that still linger and constantly

caress the edges of my shadowy interior

At least a catheter expels impurities in a manner of model efficiency,

and my previous profession always at least offered that.

Flawless vasectomies

in clean and well lit places, a sterile field sealed from infection,

but not from disease…

I often wonder if I left anyone behind, but somehow I just can’t remember.

Only an oddly defined drive to find a better way.

But somehow, I don’t believe

this is it.

As I watch the shadows slowly creeping closer, I think about India

and the Hindu concept of Maya

It took me so long to understand the space between reality and perception,

and now it seems that I live there