it’s almost 3am and i’m unscrewing the desk i’ve used for the past two years so i can sell it to some stranger on facebook marketplace when the sun comes up it’s almost 3am and moving has become a metaphor for moving: all my facebook marketplace listings say “i’d take it with me if i could” because i stopped buying cheap furniture when i moved into this apartment but now i’m dismantling a life i built over five years at 3am. i want whoever owns my desk next to take good care of it, i want whoever rents my apartment next to take care of it, i want whoever sits across from my best friend three months from now in our booth at the restaurant down the street to take good care of her. the night before i leave, she takes me down to the river and we try to burn an old polaroid. i’d been keeping it in the bottom of a drawer up until now (out of sight, out of mind) but everything about moving has become a metaphor for moving so we decide to burn it. we light it on fire, the flame goes out. we light it on fire again, the flame goes out. everything is a metaphor and i can’t burn this memory out no matter how hard i try. maybe a part of me doesn’t want to. on the way back, i tell her a secret: sometimes i feel more sad than angry over what happened; maybe that’s why the paper refused to light. i never want to hear from you again, but i still feel glad when mutual friends tell me you’re proud of me. in the end, we burnt your face out of the polaroid and tossed it in the trash, but my last memory of you will be you refusing to burn. you, refusing to leave. the desk sits in pieces in the middle of a now-empty apartment. nothing that remains here is mine anymore. doesn’t mean it’s stopped existing, the polaroid’s only half burnt still in the trash. there isn’t a single place i’ve ever fully left. the desk will be gone tomorrow. it seems all i know how to do is stay.