Pithia

[pithia]

What is called madness in one mouth is called brilliant in another. The mad who succeed and win love—or at least little hatred—are remembered as simply brilliant.

—from The Ascent to Godhood by Neon Yang (JY Yang)

[pithia]

My memories got saved all slanted and skewed. Just fragments here, fragments there.

—from The Ascent to Godhood by Neon Yang (JY Yang)

[pithia]

Even in her terrible sorrow, she was angry. Burning with rage. Her fire is not the kind that sweeps forests and leaves only ashes behind. It's the kind that burns underground, hollowing out the ground from under you. It's the kind of anger that's like lava, a force of nature that reshapes the world.

—from The Ascent to Godhood by Neon Yang (JY Yang)

[pithia]

[She] was an intoxicating presence, and her power and position hung over me like the bowed fringe of a weeping willow.

—from The Ascent to Godhood by Neon Yang (JY Yang)

[pithia]

Where do I even start? Where do you begin a tale that tangles like a bramble across the years and twines with the fine and cruel threads of fortune?

—from The Ascent to Godhood by Neon Yang (JY Yang)

[pithia]

The madness I saw in [her] was not a devouring inferno of vengeance, untamable by reason. Rather, it was a furnace—desperation burning bright and terrible, driving her forward.

—from The Descent of Monsters by Neon Yang (JY Yang)

[pithia]

Whatever truth there is hidden here, you want it buried so deep, its bones petrify in the airless dark.

—from The Descent of Monsters by Neon Yang (JY Yang)

[pithia]

Some slime-fish of a nightmare, slipping away the moment you try to hold it in your memory, growing dimmer the more you flail at its shape.

—from The Descent of Monsters by Neon Yang (JY Yang)

[pithia]

Nostalgia sweeps through her, not like a gentle breeze of recollection, but emotions in tidal waves, breaking over her head and soaking her to her marrow, from which she rises like a goddess, or a newborn child, with eyes that see everything differently.

—from Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang

[pithia]

And as [she] puts her thoughts into words and her words into breath, all of a sudden her feelings spring into reality, shaping the path of her future.

—from Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang

[pithia]

She thought that old lesion of inadequacy had long scabbed over, but her months in Daqiao have softened and dissolved those scars, once again exposing her tender flesh.

—from Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang

[pithia]

Guilt crashes through her, not as an avalanche but a slow glacial advance, making her bones heavy.

—from Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang

[pithia]

The thought, once kindled in her head, continues to burn and burn until it is a wall of flame that blots out any other rational thought.

—from Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang

[pithia]

She has actively cut that section of her life away, and the resulting wound she does not want to think about.

—from Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang

[pithia]

[S]he is spared from having to give a solid answer, spared from having to pry open the lid of her chest and look inside at the tangled, bloody mess that is her thoughts about home and mother.

—from Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang

[pithia]

It feels like part of her has cracked, but in the way frost cracks in the spring.

—from Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang

[pithia]

[T]he revelations... have had time to settle and become architecture in her mind.

—from Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang