My youth has passed me in a hurry.

It feels like yesterday I was 20 and still living with my best friends hanging pop punk flags on the walls of our first apartment together.

It feels like I was just 21 and my friends surprised me with a party and we drank until we passed out and sang karaoke like never before.

I’m sure I was just 22 or 23 and I was dating someone I hated with a passion while still crying over you.

But wait I know 24 and 25 are around the corner and it’s my first time moving out of my hometown and I want so badly to love you again but I’m ready to find myself first.

Ans 26 and 27 came in a flash- I’m living with my friends again, I’m traveling and I’m moving back home to find a different version of me again.

28 I was starting to be ready to settle down and you weren’t around anymore but I was getting used to that for once. I was living alone again and loving every moment of it. I was hiking every weekend, day drinking and starting my photography business.

And then 29 came and he came into my life without me even knowing and showed me a love I didn’t know I could have. We travelled and loved and dreamed.

And my youth passed me by, 30 and 31 have already gone with a flash. I’m getting a little more scared of the future. I’m seeing the fragile way of  life with my family and my friends.
People get older, loved ones pass on and memories fade softly.

In my 32nd year and I wonder what’s next for my grown up years ?

One step in the soft concrete
and the direction you turn from there
will shape decades.
You may find the very place,
step there again, walk over it;
turn again.
It is the same pavement noticeably
worn by micro erosion, cracked
by the hard ice of twenty winters.
The place is the same,
the space is changed—
shaped as it is now
by twenty years of urban development.
Some buildings provide
familiar shelter,
others drip stormwater on your head
from strange appendages.
Stand there
if you can spare a moment.
Turn again.
No pavement lasts forever;
concrete is liquid
and can take decades to dry.

When I see a bug crawl across
my peripheral, I take a small piece of
paper, and I softly push its legs under.
What feels like miles to the
bug, I soar paper toward an exit, the nearest
window or door, and
I put the bug down and
watch it crawl.
I imagine the 70s, when road trips' tallied by dots of
dead bugs on the windshield was as common as
Amazon packages on front porches. Now, dead bugs
are a rarity as cross-country pelts are made of dirt and
Guns, the true Americana experience of the 21st century.
Before I let the bug go, I take a digital photo on
my cell phone, a document of the species,
my tourist attraction.

deliberation deliberate
how different to consider;
and to do.
tell and wait
show and stall.
keep time in back pockets.
fish for change
and make a
pittance.
surely after words,
came reactions,
and after broken promises
came sanctions.

surely after it stopped burning
things began to grow.
stories of salt,
of salting.
an act to crystallise
and make barren,
make bare.

starting
ceasing.
how similar to filling up,
and filing down,
a feeling.

What happened to the happy times?
Why did they suddenly stop?
I wish that I still felt your love,
I wish you hadent forgot.
The way that you had felt for me,
Before things got this hard,
The days when we were both in love,
Before my heart was scarred.
I used to make you happy,
And you made me happy too.
I once could not see my future,
If it did not include you.
Faced now though with no other choice,
I dread moving on alone.
I wish that we still could have had,
Our family and our home.

Need I, to change myself?
Well, the question is easy not
Because what doth change exactly mean?
Need I, to change my behaviour?
Depends does it, on the situation
However, were you to ask me to change
Something that hath been a part of me
For years and years
The answer shall a resounding no be
Because, were I to change my nature
Then Ashwin I shall be no longer!!

Need I, to change myself?
Well, when it comest to anger management
Change I can, certainly
Of course, it is but something
Already am I working on
And I boast not
But strides, have I already made
Thus, am I on the right track

Need I, to change myself?
Well, when it comest to self-belief
Agree we all should
That this is but something
Which I need to work on
Because, currently drowning am I
In a pool of insecurities
Some of them being self-created
But yes, working on it am I
Through therapy and reading the gospel everyday
And of course, penning poems like this!!

Need I, to change myself?
Well, when it comest to certain painful incidents in the past
Do well I certainly could
To make an earnest effort
Towards forgiving and forgetting
Not because those people deserve it
But for my own inner peace
As have said repeatedly
All those dear to me

Need I, to change myself?
Well, were there something
Which I am happy with not
Then yes, may some tweak be needed
Because, as said a very dear cousin sister of mine
Change is but something
Which would keep me happy and protected

Need I, to change myself?
Well, when it comest to my character
Once again, the answer shall a resounding no be
Of course, a few behaviours here and there
Can altered be, if required
But then, doth it apply to everyone
And most importantly
Believe in myself, I must
No matter what
Again the words of my dear cousin
Amen!

Why is it,
That something so necessary,
Seems so dreadful and bittersweet?

Why am I so sad,
Over moving on from,
Something that made me so sad?

Why do leaves fall of the trees?
Why do hairs fade to grey?
Why do things fail to remain consistent?

Why can’t I live forever?
Why can’t I seem to want to?
Why can’t this fear of change make sense?

Change,
A dwarf sucker of emotional algae,
These bits of change that we face,
In life,
Are merely a placeholder for temporary discomfort.

The many that I had accepted
Beyond my control, far from being able to affect any change
Are not nearly as important
As those I forgot, or chose to let linger and fade.
And new ones come up to chase everyday,
It's true what they say;
The more things change, the more
They remain the same.
Alternate the moves, change the pace-
Still the same tango:
Dancing in place