i can't believe i still miss india

I was just twenty

I don’t remember my birthday that year. There wasn’t a party or anything. Too much else had been happening to stop and eat cake.

And I was in the Himalayas
Sitting five to a seat in a jeep taxi
Barreling up and down mountain roads muddy from the monsoons
Horns and lights blaring around corners
Because the breaks had lost reliability years ago
The tires with layers of re-treading like rings on an oak

And like a scene in that movie about the girl who finds herself in India

I was standing there alone
On a dirt road
In India
Facing a driveway that led
To the monastery