the wind doesn’t whistle. the sky is grey but there’s no grit, no dust, no brick to trudge. nothing seems new or grown up any more. everything is routine. every two points seem to have a duvet stuffed between them, a duvet between synapses. everything seems a duvet’s reach away, the soft muffling fluff both pinning your arms to your sides, your eyelids to your eyes, pushing synthetic wool into your ears and muffling the sounds of life happening anywhere beyond the cocoon. i can remember when a streetlight, flickering or not, orange or white, used to move me. now a thousand candles couldn’t so much as sing me one note. when the day was long and the night was longer. both now bleed into each other, in nothing more than equal measures. what is the purpose in any of this? what is its flavour? why is it here and what does it want? how is this road - this night, this streetlight, this grit and this footprint - how is this life? how is it part of what it is to be alive, and the charge of electricity it brings you, jolting your brain with the countless, infinite possible ways you could stretch out and exist. when did i become too old or disinterested to make that little journey down the dirty road at night? when did london become my home and not my playground? when did i swap the grit and the streetlight for this duvet? this dirty duvet, matted with human hairs, sweat and the stains of yawns. how did my youth bleed into this rag and leave only cheap stains? where is the light; the night? where is the madness that i promised me?