The Binder Nobody Picked Up

I was going somewhere else entirely

when the bell went off — not my school,

just a building with that same long shape

schools have, the painted cinderblock,

the hallways I could feel

from outside, their particular dark.

Kids came out in the usual wave.

One of them dropped a binder —

the kind with the clear plastic cover

where you slide a page in —

and it hit the sidewalk and opened,

pages lifting in the draft

from all those moving bodies,

and the kid just kept walking.

Didn't look back.

Absorbed back into the crowd.

I sat at the light and watched

the pages settle.

I don't know what I felt exactly.

Something tightened in my chest

and I wanted to go pick it up,

the binder, and I didn't,

because it wasn't mine

and the light changed.

That's the whole story.

Except I'm still thinking about it

two days later,

which is the part I don't know

what to do with.