“I felt something fall away inside. Some floor, and from beneath it boiled up something dark, black and bitter, craving vengeance.”

“Then I felt something inside me break and music began to pour out into the quiet. My fingers danced; intricate and quick they spun something gossamer and tremulous into the circle of light our fire had made. The music moved like a spiderweb stirred by a gentle breath, it changed like a leaf twisting as it falls to the ground, and it felt like three years Waterside in Tarbean, with a hollowness inside you and hands that ached from the bitter cold.”

“Something stirred beneath my skin, some being inside I'd only suspected existed, demon or angel, I couldn't say.”

“As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you.”

“Even then, it hurt. The pain was always there, pulling me inside of myself, demanding to be felt. It always felt like I was waking up from the pain when something in the world outside of me suddenly required my comment or attention.”

“‎"Living inside an over-sized body, I felt safer than I had in years. But something was missing. My heartbeat, I could no longer feel it beneath the walls of fat and pain." Small Pleasures: Mya's Story”