Year of writing 82. Upon finding a paper from a murdered student.

3/23/12

I found him beneath
the room's ancient radiator
all jagged edges and profanity,
covered in dust and ruin.
It wasn't all of him
to be fair -
but all that was left to me;
to this world.
His name clung gravely
to the top left margin -
white knuckle letters 
scratched in so desperate
as to split the fibers of the paper.
As if it knew not to contain
something so toxic.
He told me he knew his death
shook hands with it in his mirror -
these are things I had heard before.
I let the creases in the paper
fall back to their crumple,
pushed it beneath the radiator.
Somewhere in me lives
superstition about time -
should this paper outlast
the years he breathed,
perhaps it would let go his name.