The unwinding hours. When night changes the flavour of day, and love rearranges the names of all the colours in the most inspiring of ways. Kissing in the pouring rain, it’s as if there’s such a thing as magic after all. Streets I’ve walked a thousand times appear to twist and turn in new directions, and before I know it, my feet are taking me places I thought existed only in my imagination. A puddle reflecting a streetlight becomes a mirage in the desert of the real, and an abandoned store is a grotto containing the lost wonders of childhood innocence. A flung cigarette becomes a firework, and the mist on my breath transforms into the steam billowing from beneath the sidewalks of New York City. In the ‘80s, when Bill Murray was playing Scrooge with a mullet that looked sexy despite them being the devil’s haircut. They say God is an idol carved out of fear. They say many things. The night speaks but doesn’t say a thing. Its breathing is a hymn without words—one that wraps around my limbs, licking me like a flame. The vehicles on the road disappear in the rain, as do my footprints. There are others, but the water in my eyes means all I can see is what’s in my mind, and what’s in my mind is as wordless as the hymn of this endless, nameless night.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US