and when we leave the landlord will come and paint over it all

pumpkin cheesecake crumbs dot the kitchen counter, smeared gently onto a wooden tabletop bought somewhere off a connecticut highway. i easily brush these remnants of thanksgiving into the trash as i listened to a cd i haven't played for years (ani difranco - living in clip). it all plays out so seamlessly: i watch the lights of manhattan dot the horizon once again, we fall deeper into night, i sip tea and i marvel at how easily everything is given and everything is taken away. how long we take to build our stories and where those sentences eventually land. what becomes of our commas, our semi-colons, our ellipses. what will i remember of this night years and years from now? maybe nothing. and maybe that's alright.