Twenty-Five
As you gaze, I avert my eyes lest breath stop.
Behind you, leaves paint the sun while sparrows sing on.
Someone is looking directly at the speaker, and the speaker looks away—not from indifference, but because the gaze feels too intense. “Lest breath stop” turns that averted glance into an act of self-protection: the feeling is so strong that meeting it fully might be unbearable.
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