YOU DIDN’T NOTICE

You didn’t notice
how soft your voice sounded
the last night you asked for help with a dream,
how childhood slipped out of the room
without even closing the door behind it
you didn’t notice.

You didn’t notice
the last time you laughed without checking
who was watching,
the last time your footsteps were light enough
to skip instead of walk,
how the world grew heavier
but your shoulders learned to hold it
you didn’t notice.

You didn’t notice
the final morning your mother tied your shoelaces,
her fingers lingering a second longer
as if they knew something you didn’t.
It was the last time you stood long enough for someone else to steady you you didn’t notice.

You didn’t notice
when the monster under your bed
slowly stood up
and followed you into the years,
how it grew quieter, sharper, more familiar than fear should ever be how you didn’t notice
it became the monster you meet every day in the mirror.

You didn’t notice
the last time you opened your fake plastic phone,
pressing buttons that didn’t light up,
calling no one but imagination.
You didn’t notice how one day
it became a real screen in your hands
glowing, buzzing, needing you,
and how quietly it turned
into an addiction you now carry everywhere-
you didn’t notice.

You didn’t notice
your parents were growing up too
not old, just changing
in ways you never looked closely at before.
You didn’t notice the slight thinning of hair,
the tiredness hiding behind their smiles,
not because they aged suddenly,
but because you grew enough to finally see it.
How the world sharpened around you and so did the truth you didn’t notice.
And maybe that’s how it always is
the last times come disguised as ordinary days,
slipping through your fingers like they were never meant to stay, and by the time you look back, childhood is already out of reach you didn’t notice.

Poem by: Abheree Basu

Class XI

Apeejay School, Saket