Dircksey September 2025

SEP T 20

25

DIRCKSEY

E T N N T O S C An Ode To The Poet Whose Heart Is Broken by A Immerse in The Invisble by Xue Li The Discipline of Relentless of Growth by Mildred Ling If Trees Could Talk by Francesca Fernandez Between Pages by Jennie Lyn Ligamzon A Magical Friendship: The Incredibly Gay Burt Wonderstone by Alex Banham

EDITORIAL TEAM Editor: Abby Joy S. Sy dirckseyeditor@ecuguild.org.au Sub-Editor: Francesca Fernandez editors@ecuguild.org.au Marketing & Promotion: Eleanor Mulder operations@ecuguild.org.au

Content Warning Dircksey may contain topics that can be confronting for readers. These topics include racism, homophobia, violence, blood, hateful language, death, animal cruelty and mental illness.

No individual trigger warnings are given in the pages of the magazine, so please, take care

CONTRIBUTORS Jennie Lyn Ligamzon Xue Li Mildred Ling Alex Banham

The opinions expressed within this magazine are not necessarily those of the Dircksey Editor, Edith Cowan University, or the ECU Student Guild. All reasonable care is taken to ensure Dircksey articles, and other information in the magazine, is current and accurate at the time of publication, however, no responsibility can or will be taken by the entities listed above, should an issue of Dircksey contain errors or omission.

Dircksey acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which this magazine was created, the Whadjuk Nyoongar people.

If you would like to contribute to Dircksey, you can contact the editor via the listed email above, or visit us on https://dircksey.com

2ND ED.

DIRCKSEY

SEPT 2025

AUTHOR’S CORNER a letter to the readers; to myself

DEAR READERS

And just like that, we find ourselves only months away from the end of 2025. To poetry, to the art that offered me solace in an unfamiliar place, this marks the close of my journey as Dircksey’s editor.

Through words I’ve encountered, and artworks that left me in silence, I have learned to see again the quiet beauty of creation. This year has been an unfolding of adventure, heartbreak, and stress; a tangle of mixed emotions that shaped me in ways I’ll carry forward.

I have come to see that life is a puzzle. Every rise and fall, every joy and sorrow, is a piece shaping who we are.

Be afraid, be confident. Be happy, be sad.

Cry, rage, laugh until it hurts. Allow yourself to feel it all— for even silence, even the act of hiding, is its own kind of feeling.

There is colour in the darkness of mistakes and of falling apart.

And as life reveals itself as a puzzle, I realise we are never meant to be complete. It is the lessons and memories along the way that slowly carve us into something whole. But even so, unfinished puzzles are still beautiful, pieces scattered across the table, stories left untold.

These are the last words I leave with you, a letter to myself as much as to you. I began my first magazine with a note, and now I end it with one. Until we meet again.

All the love,

Abby Sy

2ND ED.

DIRCKSEY

SEPT 2025

MEMORIES

an ode to the poet whose heart is broken

“YOU COULD DIE FROM A BROKEN HEART”

Oh dear poet, you whose grasp of love is but a child’s, laid eyes upon a muse and suddenly, words coursed through your veins for days you yearned, for nights you prayed to the stars to silence the restless butterflies you tried to end your sentences with periods, yet at her feet, they shattered into commas, with unbeknownst courage, your fingers shaped letters that blossomed into words of love, You expressed it in the way you only knewin metaphors and hyperboles, in poetry and narratives though you knew how the story would turn, that your love would be denied, still, you let the words fly Like a curse, words of unvarnished truth echoes in your mind, tarnishing your soul yet still you fill the pages, each line bearing the ache of your heart, with a pen that bleeds and weeps unspoken sorrows

A.

Oh dearest poet, it is time to close the chapter. For a love not returned is an ending of a story itself. Rest your daffodils beside bittersweet memories, and let every word fade into the quiet pages of a forlorn history...

2ND ED.

DIRCKSEY

SEPT 2025

REMEMBER ME

a story of connection and lasting memories from ECU Mt. Lawley Last year, I visited ECU’s Mt Lawley campus for the first time. As a Joondalup student, it had always felt like “the other campus,” a place to go. That changed when I was invited to take part as a Buddy Ambassador for the Tokyo City University (TCU) Australia Program (TAP).

L

The TAP program brings Japanese students to ECU for study abroad, offering them the chance to experience life in Perth while sharing their culture with us. As a Buddy Ambassador, my role was simple: to guide, support, and help the students feel at home in a new city.

Through a friend, I met one of the students while assisting with buses and grocery shopping. A simple introduction soon turned into a genuine friendship, and everyday tasks became moments of conversation, curiosity and laughter.

Together, we explored Perth—from Fremantle Markets to Scarborough and Cottesloe Beach, and the Perth CBD. What might have been ordinary outings turned into memorable adventures, shaped by cultural exchange and fresh perspectives. Places I thought I knew suddenly felt new again through our shared experiences.

When the program ended, saying goodbye was difficult, but our friendship didn’t stop there. We still keep in touch, sharing updates and memories across the distance. It’s proof that connections made during TAP can last long beyond the program itself.

Looking back, I realise this is what being a Buddy Ambassador is truly about. It’s not just about helping students navigate a city, but about embracing opportunities to connect, learn and form meaningful relationships. Mt Lawley is no longer just “the other campus” to me—it’s the place where an unexpected friendship reshaped how I see the world and the people in it.

JENNIE LYN LIGAMZON

TAP PROGRAM

FRIENDS - BUDDIES

2ND ED.

DIRCKSEY

REMEMBER ME ECU Mt. Lawley

SEPT 2025

THROUGH the LENS LENS

Write your thoughts...

What I WISH I KNEW....

Title: Immerse in the Invisible Material: Red Satin, transparent balloons, silver balloons, video projections, Installation, Durations variable.

Dimension variable.

2025.

Xue Li is a Chinese artist, art historian, and lecturer at Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts. She holds a master's degree from Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts and is currently pursuing a PhD in Visual Arts at Edith Cowan University. Her artistic practice critically engages with feminist theories, reinterpreting Chinese art conventions through the lens of Western feminist strategies while navigating the constraints of contemporary Chinese society.

Exhibited at ECU’s Mount Lawley Campus Open Day 2025, Immerse in the Invisible reflects on the invisibility of Chinese women within domestic and cultural frameworks, particularly in marriage and family. Using red cloth, transparent balloons, and projected video, the installation explores how women’s presence is softened, obscured, and confined.

Through visual metaphors—dust in sunlight, glimmers on water, invisible labour, gestures of removal, and nameless silhouettes—it evokes how women remain present yet unseen, upholding structures that rarely grant them visibility.

Rather than spectacle, the work conveys absence through pressure, proximity, and quiet accumulation.

e v o o r G y e s k c r i D

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by ABBA Y t All n’ es I k Ta is Presley Elv Queen by

I’m St God O ill Sta nly ndi Kn ng ow b Who ’s s Lo The vi Win Love M ne r e Killer Que by en

What’s In My Bag? ecu notebook pens

powerbank wallet

tablet

stethoscope

The Discipline of Relentless Growth Western Australia

51.5074° N/0.1278° W

Do not be annoyed, do not rely on others.

If you do not know something, go learn it.

Look up for information, watch videos, slowly explore.

No matter how difficult the process, it can all become a skill you master.

If you only think about getting by, difficulties will only increase.

We must have the ability to independently solve problems.

If you want to become extraordinarily strong, you must act wildly and train with high intensity.

Training in humanity, training in courage, training in mental fortitude.

Continuously cultivate and grind day after day, Do not be emotional, work hard.

Keep taking action, and miracles will surely happen.

By Midred Ling

Perth City

If Trees Could Talk What I wish I knew was if trees could talk, they'd laugh about me.

They must have noticed my worried look as I ran to class, finding my way though buildings all around campus, map crumpled in my bag, as if the walls were built to make me lose myself before I could find my way.

They must have seen how heavy my steps were on nights I stayed too long, windows glowing while the world outside slept.

If trees could talk, they'd remind me that roots take time, that it's alright to bend, to not stand tall right away.

They'd try to speak to me when my mind began to slow down, as I take in the rush from fountain, by the lake, at the heart of the uni. and I could feel them try to tell me what I couldn't tell myself then: that I was never alone here. that support was stitched into every corner in friends who listened, lecturers who guided, facilities that kept me steady.

What I wish I knew is that all along, the people here were holding me as surely as its trees.

by Francesca Fernandez

“see what the jukebox wants to tell you”

1 2 3 4 5

“see what the jukebox wants to tell you”

1 2 3 4 5

Adventure is everywhere, sometimes it starts with simply saying yes.

Wake up. Eat. Shower. Go out for a walk.

Some stories aren’t meant to last forever, but their lessons live on.

Every assignment is a step closer to your goals. keep going, you’ve got this.

Remember, you are enough! just as you are, today.

Between Pages‌

by Jennie Lyn Ligamzon‌

The library was Ethan’s refuge. In the stillness, where the scent of old books lingered and the hum of fluorescent lights felt like a lullaby, he could breathe. He always sat by the tall windows, watching shadows stretch across the courtyard while trying to wrestle meaning from endless paragraphs.

One late afternoon, as he struggled with a particularly dense history textbook, a voice broke through his concentration.

“Hey… you’re in Professor Hart’s class, right?”

Ethan looked up to see Adrian, messy dark hair, curious eyes, and a smile that felt like sunlight sneaking into the quiet. Adrian held the same heavy book Ethan was buried in.

“Yeah… though I’m barely surviving,” Ethan admitted, half-laughing.

“Mind if I sit?” Adrian asked. “Maybe we can figure it out together.”

And so they began, side by side, sharing notes, whispering jokes between stacks of books, and staying late into the evening. What began as study sessions slowly became something softer, Adrian leaning closer to point out a passage, Ethan’s pulse racing at the brush of shoulders, the comforting rhythm of coffee cups and quiet conversation.

Weeks passed, and their friendship became a constant in both their lives. They laughed, supported each other through exams, and shared secrets too small to tell anyone else. Ethan never admitted how much he looked forward to Adrian’s presence; Adrian never admitted how much it mattered when Ethan smiled in his direction.

But one afternoon, the quiet broke.

A girl from class approached Ethan while he was reviewing notes, clutching her notebook like a shield.

Adrian, arriving just moments later, froze in the aisle of bookshelves as he saw her lean close, cheeks flushed.

“I… I really like you, Ethan.”

Ethan blinked, startled. He opened his mouth to respond, but Adrian didn’t wait. The sight alone was enough, he turned and left, leaving the library before Ethan could notice.

Days passed, and the chair across from Ethan remained empty. Rain fell softly outside, echoing the emptiness in the library. Unable to bear it, Ethan finally went searching. He found Adrian by the vending machines, shoulders hunched, gaze heavy.

“Adrian,” Ethan whispered, “why did you stop coming?”

Adrian shifted uneasily. “I thought… you wouldn’t need me anymore.”

Ethan frowned. “Need you? You’re the only person I wanted to sit with, to laugh with, to wait for every single day.”

The words tumbled out unguarded, carrying more truth than Ethan realised. His cheeks burned, but he didn’t take them back.

For a long moment, Adrian stayed silent, as if the words were a light he hadn’t expected. Then, almost reluctantly, he confessed: “That day in the library… I saw someone confess to you. I didn’t stay to hear what you said. I just…

I thought you’d say yes. And I didn’t want to get in the way.”

Ethan blinked, startled. For a second, his mind flashed back...the soft, quiet words he had whispered in the library, unseen by Adrian: “I’m sorry. I don’t feel the same.”

He shook his head, stepping closer. “Adrian, I didn’t say yes. I said no. Because the truth is… the only person I’ve been waiting for is you.”

Adrian’s chest tightened. The rain outside tapped steadily against the glass, but between them, the silence had broken at last.

A smile, fragile but real, curved across Adrian’s face. “I can’t believe I almost lost this… lost us… because I was too afraid to ask.”

Ethan’s lips softened into a smile of his own. “Then don’t be afraid anymore.”

The space between them melted away, and in the quiet glow of the corridor, just as in the library where it all began, something unspoken finally took form, tender and infinite.

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A MAGICAL FRIENDSHIP: THE INCREDIBLY GAY BURT WO NDERSTO NE

by Alex Banham‌

It’s always funny to me when people don’t pick up on obvious queer undertones.

I can’t understand it, but I also can’t blame straight people for it. It’s hard to see outside your own lens. But queer recognises queer. I grew up in fandom, a place for queers to talk about queer narratives in the media they loved. We got used to straight people saying we were imagining things. So, imagine my surprise when I watched The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) with my partner, a gay man, and he was confused by my claims that it was a gay movie. He couldn’t see what I saw, he believed that any gay undertones were unintended by the filmmakers. A literature review concurred: no one online had anything to say about it. I see it as my duty to speak the quiet part out loud, and so, here is my queer analysis of Burt Wonderstone.

The film is about two Las Vegas magicians, Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carrell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi). Burt and Anton meet as children, both bullied outcasts that bond over their shared interest in magic, a metaphor for queerness if I’ve ever heard one. Cut forward several decades and the couple headline a show on the Strip. Burt is dressed in sequins and glitter, a plunging neckline, mullet coiffed and gelled within an inch of its life; Anton is in a black rhinestone jacket with ruffle shirt and bowtie to match. This, if it isn’t obvious from the description, is drag, minus the breastplate and hip padding, but including the wigs. They have an easy rapport and choreographed dancing. The duo shares with the audience that they have a ‘magical friendship’, that they liked each other ‘a little differently than the other kids.’

They are joined on stage by a scantily clad woman, their assistant. This I see as a sort of disavowal: they are allowed to do magic (read: be gay) together because of the presence of a woman in a bikini. Neither of the men pay attention to her, on or off stage, but no one would dare call them gay with her there. During a quick change in the wings, Burt, in a gay rage, fires the assistant and picks a new one at random from the stage crew. The dressing crew begin stripping her down to her lacy underwear and force her on stage. Now here is perhaps the gayest part: Burt and the new assistant, Jane, are placed inside a box (a closet, really) for their next trick. Burt hits on the assistant inside the closet, while Anton, from outside, pierces the closet with long metal swords. Yes, the drag queen Burt Wonderstone hides in a closet with a scantily clad woman and hits on her while his gay lover penetrates the closet for a paying audience. This is in the first five minutes of the movie, and the pure unadulterated queerness of the scene, coupled with my own partner’s denial of it, is what encouraged me to write this.

Burt and Anton seem to enjoy the idea of being put in boxes, because in a later scene they are placed in a large plexiglass box together and hoisted up above the streets of Las Vegas. Their ‘trick’ is to stay up there together for a whole week.

The first thing Burt says once they reach the full height is that he ‘won’t be having sex for a week’. Sure, Burt. The trick proves far too much for him, however. He can’t take being stuck in a clear box with his gay lover on display for a huge crowd for more than 20 minutes before devolving into pure gay panic, screeching and sweating and trying to kick the walls off. He dislodges the wires holding the box up and he and Anton come spilling out. Anton holds on to the edge and Burt holds on to Anton, which results in Burt pulling Anton’s pants down to his ankles (at which point a young gay boy exclaims, ‘this is the best trick ever!’). They both fall from the box, injuring Anton and making him quit the show. He bellows ‘good luck, you incredible asshole’ and is taken away on a stretcher. If it isn’t obvious, this is a breakup. Two aging queens have a public spat, airing out the dirty laundry of a decades-long relationship. They recouple later, in a scene involving a lot of blubbering about how much they missed one another.

I should also mention Jim Carrey’s character Steve Gray, better known by his stage name ‘Brain Rapist’. Think Criss Angel meets Jesus Christ and you’ll have his vibe. In the queer subtext, he literally takes up a Jesus-like role, or at least the Jesus that homophobic Christians use to justify bigotry. Later in the film, Burt is trying to perform magic for a small audience when Carrey’s Jesus appears.

Every time Burt does a trick (remember magic is a metaphor for queerness), Jesus responds with self-flagellation to draw attention. This mirrors the argument that queerness is sinful. Jesus is the maimed god; he suffered so that we would be free from sin. So, when Burt does queer things, Jesus’s suffering is garishly displayed to draw attention away. The audience quickly becomes fed up with Brain Rapist, preferring the much more family friendly magic of Burt. I love this because, through this queer vs Jesus lens, the queers win.

This film ends, annoyingly, with Burt shacking up with the assistant Jane. They begin to sleep with one another with Anton in the room, cuckolding him out of the (in my opinion) much more satisfying gay ending. Perhaps my partner is right, perhaps the filmmakers didn’t intend it to be queer. But the result is a very gay movie. I highly recommend it.

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2025 2025

BUCKET LIST Take a morning swim at the beach!

Go on an impulsive drive/trip!

Watch the sunrise/ sunset after school/ work/ exams Learn how to say “hello” in 3 different languages Concoct the BEST sandwhich EVER TO EXIST Watch the fireworks on new year Take a picture of the jacarandas Finish this semester

thank you for reading