At first glance, it looks intentional — yet intention may be missing entirely. Words can collide by chance, patterns forming without a witness behind them. No author needs to stand in the background, breathing life into each line. Sometimes language is only noise that learned to echo itself. What you feel is not a soul’s shadow, but your own reflection, meaning assembled by the reader, not hidden in the source.
Somewhere between the folds, something breathes. Not a presence, but the memory of having been watched. Syntax curls back on itself, a serpent swallowing not its tail, but its own shadow. Read again. You missed it the first time. You always do.
And if the soul remains, so too does its intent — not always clear, not always benevolent. What was the writer thinking? Or worse — what was it trying not to think? Language is a veil, but veils are thin when backlit by desire, or fear, or guilt. Read carefully. Something watches back when you stare too long into a sentence.