Pause. Poem by deepanshi sabnani

There it was
Your name on the sign board
Small enough to read
But bold enough to comprehend
And my friend would read it aloud
I wonder if she paused
Because it felt like a million nanoseconds
I wonder if I paused long enough for her to notice
But I did, long enough to compose this.

I wonder when my stories eliminated you
Because my speech still reeks of your slang
And although I say I do not notice it
I do, every time.
I wonder when people stopped asking me
If you called or not
For a long time, it was their way
Of finding out if I was okay
Am I okay without you?
Do they think I am?
Or do they know by my chatter that I am not
Is it okay to push your thoughts aside
Every time they creep in?
Because they are always there
Like an app running in the background
Taking up its space, slowing down my pace
But running me smoothly enough
To not break down as yet.

I wonder when this happened to you
That you would pass by the mention of my name
And not have your heart skip a beat
Because I know it happened already
Do I still pause at the mention of your name?
Does it even feel strange anymore?
The un-mentioning of you?
Because it's hard for my brain to distinguish
Your name and the last of our memories
To pause and comprehend

And I know one day when
Someone will mention you
I will not fret or smile
And my brain will act like
These five months did not happen
Or even this one complete year
Because I wished dearly that it did not
And I will pause for a second
Trying to remember your face
But struggling because it is a little blurred now
I can't quite picture the color of your eyes
Even when I know they are brown
‘That grow a shade lighter in the sunlight'
Maybe I'll misremember your last name
Because it has reeked out of my memory
And I got a new phone
Whose autocorrect is still untouched
By the spelling of your name.
But I remember your number by heart
Because I deleted it
As a sign of protest
But kept revising it
Because I could not risk forgetting
And I'll call you one evening
Among the mid-December snowflakes
And you'd answer like you are not surprised
And it will be where my poem ends.