Title: At The Edge Of The Unbuilt Bridge Poem by ashok jadhav

(The speaker stands alone at twilight, a road stretching behind them, a river unseen but felt ahead. Their voice carries urgency, restraint, and hard-earned wisdom.)
I have learned something about fear—
it is an architect with a cruel imagination.
It drafts bridges out of smoke,
designs collapses before a single stone is laid,
and invites me to rehearse my fall
a thousand times before I ever reach the river.
I used to live there—
in the future that had not happened,
in disasters that had not asked for my name.
Every step forward was delayed
by questions sharpened into knives:
What if it breaks?
What if I fail?
What if the crossing costs more than I can pay?
I mistook preparation for wisdom,
and worry for foresight.
I called it responsibility—
this habit of dragging tomorrow into today
and forcing it to confess its worst intentions.
But hear me now—
the road does not end where fear predicts.
The bridge is not waiting to ambush me.
It does not rise in the dark
plotting my undoing.
The truth is quieter, sterner, kinder.
You do not build strength
by trembling on distant shores.
You do not solve storms
by counting clouds weeks in advance.
Life does not demand prophecy—
it demands presence.
There is a moment—
you know it when it arrives—
when the ground beneath your feet changes its tone.
Certainty thins.
The air sharpens.
That is the edge.
That is when the river finally speaks.
And only then—
only when the water roars at your ankles
and the choice can no longer be postponed—
do your hands discover what they are capable of.
Only then does courage step out
from behind the curtain of excuses.
I have crossed bridges I swore would kill me.
I have found planks where I expected void.
And when bridges were missing,
I learned something far more dangerous—
how to build while standing in the rush of doubt.
So I will not bleed in advance.
I will not mourn losses that have not occurred.
I will not spend tonight
paying interest on tomorrow's pain.
Let the problem rise to meet me.
Let it wear its true face.
I will meet it eye to eye,
not as a ghost, not as a rumor,
but as a fact—solid, immediate, real.
Until then,
I walk.
I breathe.
I live.
When the bridge comes,
I will cross it.
Not before.