Fleeting Moments

By Aaradhya Sinha

Isn't it weird?

Twelve years. 

Twelve years full of laughter, joy, and tears. 

Friendship, heartbreak, and most of all, memories.

Memories where even the benches had more gossip than us.

Where we breathed the same air,

cursed the same place,

played the same games, 

and broke the same rules.

It was a routine, 

a routine I never realised I loved so deeply.

I thought I hated the mornings stealing my sleep, dragging myself to school, into halls so steep.

But the truth is, I loved this routine. 

Not the syllabus, not the tests,

But the unsaid, unplanned madness of us being together every day.

And now, now that it is all gone, it feels strange,

like I have misplaced a part of my soul.

Twelve years, I followed the same timetable,

And now, it’s all suddenly gone.

The timetable’s gone. The friends are gone. 

The memories are the only things that choose to stay.

And yes, on that farewell day, we promised, 

we promised that we would meet every Sunday.

But those Sundays slipped into months unseen. 

And the calls we decided to make every day faded quietly, like a forgotten dream.

And it's true, maybe we’ll meet someday, in a supermarket aisle.

I’ll fumble your name, but fake a smile.

Yet somewhere inside, a soft clip will play of stolen tiffins and bunked school days.

It’s weird. It’s strange. It’s painfully clear.

We used to say — "Oh, we have time now." 

But time whispered otherwise.

And now we realise,

We grew up too fast.

The friends I never planned to make are disappearing. 

And the life I swore I’d never forget has blurred into my vision. 

But the memories stayed in blurred vision.

And maybe, that is the beauty of time’s gentle, yet cruel art,

that you are gone from sight, but forever stuck in my heart.

By Aaradhya Sinha