“Little by little // their conversations unpeel

like bright foil // from forbidden sweets”

Emma Neale

Ōtepoti // Koputai // Aramoana

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.

Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in

Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore