how do i look away now that i have seen you?

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You,

We didn't even speak. You were standing in line for coffee, green coat buttoned up wrong, hair still wet from the rain. I don't know why my chest tightened like that. You just.. existed. And somehow that felt like enough to rearrange me.

I keep thinking about how your hands wrapped around the paper cup, how you looked down when you smiled at the barista, how your shoelace was untied but you didn't notice. These are not important things. And yet they feel like everything.

How am I supposed to look away now that I've seen you? Not just your face, but the small things that make you you. The details that feel stolen.

I don't know you. I don't know your name or what you were drinking. But in the seconds before you left, you glanced my way, and it felt like the whole city went quiet.

Maybe you forgot me before you reached the next block. But I'm still here, writing this on a moving bus like some cliche, trying to capture something I was never supposed to keep.

-A

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