The music died an hour ago and only the stragglers are left, six of them draped across the couch like coats nobody claimed, passing one warm beer in a circle because getting up for a cold one is too far to walk.
They think the party is over. They have no idea. This is the part. This is the whole thing.
Look at the boy in the corner, half asleep, his head listing slowly onto the shoulder of the girl beside him, and she does not move, she lets him, she just keeps talking in that low three-in-the-morning voice about a dream she had when she was nine. Nobody will remember this conversation.
That is what makes it holy. They are not trying to be anywhere. They are not performing. Someone's sock has a hole in it. Someone laughs at nothing and the laugh sets off three more.
There is a smell in here I would trade a great deal to have back: spilled beer gone flat, somebody's perfume worn down to almost nothing, the sweet stale warmth of too many people breathing the same small room. They keep saying they should go home. They keep not going. They think they are wasting time.
Oh, stay. Please. The chairs are uncomfortable and your phone is dying and one of you has to work in four hours, and none of that matters, none of it ever mattered. Let your head rest where it is resting. Let the beer stay warm.
Talk until the windows go gray, my loves.
You will miss this floor.