AUG 2021
OGMA
By Zhigang (www.zhigangart.com)
editor's note
By Zhigang (www.zhigangart.com)
Dear Reader,
On that note, let's get into our summer issue. Summer to me is my favourite season, full of
Welcome to Ogma's summer publication, a
long days in the sun, good food, warm
much-awaited issue as we have not published
seawater, parties on the beach under the full
since January! This issue is a digital-only
moon and a time brimming with possibilities to
publication and my last one as Editor In Chief. I
make memories. We asked you to submit work
want to thank in this letter our readers, our
encapsulating the passion and love you feel
staff, everyone who has supported us this past
during summer, and you all did not disappoint.
year (Ogma is a year old, crazy right?!). It has been a phenomenal experience and I am so
Pages of poetry, writing, art, essays are within
happy to have worked on this magazine. To our
this issue, read them while enjoying the last day
submitters and supporters, and especially our
of summer. Finally, thank you again for your
staff writers, artists, editors, designers and
support and love for Ogma. The team and I
photographers - thank you. I could not have
have loved this journey so much and we hope
made this project a reality without you all.
you have too. Kisses,
I have decided to step away as Editor in Chief as I am starting university soon and will have other projects to focus on as well as my studies. Ogma will always have a special place in my heart. Our issues will still be available to read online, but no further issues will be made.
Aneleh
Aneleh EDITOR IN CHIEF
Steps For Falling in Love Words by HALLE PRENETA I. I feel like I could watch you move around a room
By Rachel McLean
IV. I want to love you. I want to love you unconditionally. I want you to kill me and then resurrect me. Raise me up from the dead. Raise me up like you always do when I’m sad or depressed or scared or anxious.
for hours. Nothing but you dancing throughout the space, legs jumping, arms flowing,
V. I want you to keep being you. I never want you to
head bobbing to the rhythms of your feet.
change. I want to keep taking you in, absorbing you until you live in my head and every
II. I love how I can always feel the energy in your
time I close my eyes, you’re there. You’re
words. Each letter breathes life into every
there to comfort me. You’re there to make me laugh.
word you send. Your sentences plant seeds that
You’re there, by my side, ready to take on
grow beautiful flowers. Your paragraphs start
the world with me.
whole civilizations. I’ll suffocate without your words absorbing new life into me.
-
III. I want to take you all in. Your flowing hair and
Halle (she/her) enjoys writing short romance, sci-fi,
emblazoned skin that suddenly glows when
and horror stories along with poetry and gets her
you’re outside. I want to experience you cranked up
ideas from random life experiences and fanfiction.
to eleven. Your witty jokes, your words that
When she’s not writing, she’s either watching
can breathe life into everything dead, your sparkling
YouTube or playing Animal Crossing. Her Twitter
smile with teeth so white they’re blinding.
handle is @YaTheatreNerd
By Ayshe-Mira Yashin
Lunch in the Morning Words by EUNICE CHOI whick whick whick whick whick.
Mom laughs and smiles after a brief second. “Why, who says I can’t cook? I’m cooking food for my own
The chime of a fast knife piercing and decapitating
daughter.”
some vegetable on the cutting board wakes and rings my ears, while the sink runs galore.
“Mom! Please just stop.” Wondering what could possibly
pooooshhhhh-
come
next
after
her
own
culinary
compendium had collapsed, I broke down in a nervous rage. “Please stop, Mom, please, it tastes
“Water OFF!” I fervently yell in frustration from my
awful and you can’t even season the spinach-clam
room in the midst of peeking at the clock, stomping
soup correctly anymore.”
out, and scowling at Mom. The water turned off. The nearly inevitable recurrence is yet a problem for
Occupied with the hot stove and the boiling soup
another day.
pot, my mother stares back at me in innocent eyes and then studies the ground, processing my sharp
“I’m sorry, dear, the water is off.” Mom blankly
words that stabbed her. “Oh.” “Okay.” Oh God, I
stares at me with seeming repentance, perhaps
know if words had blades, we would all be dead.
beguiling. Her eyebrows shrugged high and her hands clasped together, as she stood on the kitchen
“Ugh, now what!” “I’m late!” “All because of you!” I
corner with a dirty ragged apron tied on the front
grimly lash out at her. I stomp to the bathroom, my
and wet hands. She is preparing a
mind reeling. To brush my teeth, to wash my face, to
meal-- just for me.
get dressed, and to eat breakfast were all part of the morning before I received notice of her new
For me.
condition-- where her memory paled to paranoia and forgetfulness. Now, I’m ineluctably left responsible
Shaking my head, I sigh deep in and out, almost on
for the onerous task, that of filial duties, to remind
my lungs’ own accord. Who knows how many times
her that the water bills will soar every morning.
she will finally remember to turn off the faucet when not in use. Who cares, anyway? I blame Alzheimer’s-
When I make my way to the common area with my
- but things are never quite the same. “Mom, you
bag, Mom is packing, whilst humming, a
don’t need to make my lunch-- remember you don’t
lunch box consisting of soup, rice, and kimchi. She
know how to cook, anymore?”
ties her concoction tightly (proudly) with some red fabric, twice.
As I tread out the apartment building in giant, far-reaching steps, I get ready to intersect the big crossroad under the sweltering heat. Hurriedly behind me, large strides of running, insufficient breaths of oxygen, and the sound of her voice washed over me. “Baby-” Mom catches her breath momentarily with her hands resting tiredly on her knees. She comes again with heavy eyelids. “Baby, you forgot this-” I scan her surreal presence in utter disbelief and immediate sentiment. She had rushed down the four flights of apartment stairs barefoot. The mad woman had sprinted toward the streets to hand me the lunch-- the lunch I had abandoned myself-- along with the warm and ebullient memories that I, not Mom, forgot. Sweating profusely over the hot, burning pavement, I meet the eyes. I have no right, but I reach for the lunch box. I have no right, but I burst into tears, like a tidal wave, and caressed my mother in solace. I have no right, but I vulnerably smell the vast comfort, reassurance, and tenderness-- a scent that I desperately needed right now. “Mama.” Oh God, I missed her so much. Eunice Choi is a writer from California. She enjoys reading, creative writing, and journalism. In her free time, she likes to appreciate film and bake new recipes.
Daydream Words by ANGELA SIFUENTES Take me to the shallow valleys of the Surreal,
We can only find life
where the dawn and the dusk meet
without each other
where my fantasies of us greet each other
Because within each other
in a sea of scattered melodies
we only find darkness a life without a single painting of you
I close my eyes and I find myself surrounded by roses and sunsets and pictures of you,
And at the end of the day, I’ll realize
paintings of you, colors used
We were not meant to see each other
from the everliving light of day
We were not meant find each other
but even the light of day cannot match my Sun
We were not meant to live within each other
which is you And if at the end of the day It seems as if the day I’ll stop loving you is the day the Universe will serve its last breath
I find that the Moon and the Sun greet each other
Until then, I’ll be a wolf roaming in a field of dandelions,
in a sea of scattered melodies
waiting for the moment it will be whisked away
I’ll remember to hold your hand
A fantasy bound to end in due time for however long our paths meet But at the end of the day, I know I am only the Moon to your Sun
Angela Sifuentes is a rising high school senior
At the end of the day, I am the wolf to your roses
from the Los Angeles area, with hopes of
Blowing and wishing and praying
pursuing careers in engineering and writing. She
On dandelions that have already been blown away
currently has works published in The Paper Crane Journal, The Hearth Magazine, and Blue
And at the end of the day,
Things Zine. You can follow her writing account
you are the Sun
on Instagram @sakura.rose.writes!
and I am the Moon This piece describes both the highs and lows of love: feeling as if you're living in a daydream and loss. As the reader follows the poem, they find themselves traversing through a daydream to a point of despair, and ultimately, a point of bittersweet hope. Though the string of fate is laid in the hands of destiny, the poem raises the point of loving for as long as one can rather than not loving at all.
Poolside
Exist Words by ASHLEY PEARSON
My cousin is drinking a pack of hard lemonade in a
The Midwest exists, yes, really, the Midwest exists.
black tankini
In the middle of the United States of America, miles
and burns.
and miles of tiny towns exist.
Her red skin is supple.
The horizon extends for miles in shades of pink and
That’s my song! This is my song!
red and orange and blue:
She points directly at the beat-up blue radio playing
a backdrop against acres of wind turbines, corn,
Paramore.
laundromats, nail salons and century- old farmhouses.
Wading in the deep end, stinking of chlorine,
Hot humid summers exist; grandpa’s homemade
walking on newly laid laminate wooden floors,
vanilla ice cream dripping down your chin;
wearing sticky sun-bleached sandals— ---
pollen tickling your nose; makeshift pools in
I think I am at peace.
overgrown backyards; tremendous thai food beside a thrift store.
Sometime later, it was dinner. Smoke billows from a
Geese exist; leading their babies across highways;
skillet and my cousin burns her red right hand.
pecking at Tenderloin sandwiches; honking at passersbys on gravel roads.
For days, we are walking on eggshells. Shush. What I know I cannot say.
Goodbyes exist and people leave in second- hand cars and on commercial planes. Memories exist; fleeting and fast, like cars racing down a side street in your one-
From behind closed doors,
stoplight hometown.
I leave to open the windows.
Hailing from Monmouth, Illinois, Ashley Pearson is a current undergraduate student at Knox College. She will be a junior this fall. She is majoring in Biology and Creative Writing. Additionally, Ashley is Pre-Dental. Her poems and short stories have been published in Catch Magazine, Ogma Magazine, Ginosko Literary Journal, Paper Crane Journal, The Hearth Stories, The Global Youth Review, Oyedrum, and elsewhere. This two poems about summers in the Midwest involving freedom, family, and the future.
Friends Words by MAGGIE NERZ IRIBARNE I never expected my volunteer experience with the elderly to be anything other than a kind of bootcamp, a preparation for caring for my parents someday. I feared old people: their illnesses, their loneliness, their pain. I wanted to toughen up. “Can I have someone, you know, easy?” I asked Maris, the director of Corp Communicare in Philadelphia, an agency she founded to connect the young - in my case, about 27 - with the very old. We squatted on small stools in the preschool Maris rented as her evening headquarters. Maris, not much younger than my parents at the time, half-smiled in either amusement or disbelief. “I’ll see what I can do,“ she said. Dorothy’s apartment sat on the top floor of a bleak, stuffy rowhouse. Every Sunday, I rode my bike to the street outside her building and looked up to her third floor window. Since she didn’t have a phone, we arranged for her to give me a thumbs up if she felt well enough to have me visit. She always felt well enough. There also wasn’t a buzzer, so her crabby landlord agreed to let me in each time. He, too, awaited my arrival, perched in his defunct jewelry store window. I climbed the front steps, he turned the lock, we mumbled unenthusiastic greetings, and I stepped into the darkness. Trudging up the three stories, most of the overhead lights burned out above me, I’d find Dorothy at the top, waiting beside her open door. Her sparkling, mischievous blue eyes and matching smile beckoned me inside. The sight and smell of the junk-filled apartment often hit me like walking into a wall. There were piles of books, clothes, papers, books, stuff everywhere. A pervasive rotten, fecal smell caused me to gag, turn away. Most of the time I could manage it well enough to maintain composure and find a place to sit on her newspaper-covered couch. She offered me tea in a dirty flowered cup and a muffin her hand groped for and found amidst the decades of dust bunnies under the couch. My main job was to read to her. Dorothy loved to read - hence the piles of books and papers all over the place - but her eyes couldn’t see well enough to do so. Dorothy also loved cats, but, as she wisely stated multiple times, “I can’t take care of myself, how can I take care of a cat?” So, she clutched a grey stuffed cat she named Bell, for its silver bell attached to its collar, while I read her stories about cats from a book she found in a garbage pile somewhere. Week by week, I spent my hour first making small talk about my work, my life, Dorothy’s work (she’d once been a receptionist) and life (although she kept her long past, her family, a tight secret). Then she’d lay back on her cluttered couch and listen to me read. I found myself enjoying the soothing cat stories, too. We’d smile, trade looks, share soft laughter.
The years passed. We kept talking and reading. I picked up her groceries she left at the bottom of the stairs, or anything else too heavy for her to carry. Dorothy gave me gifts: a pair of golden mugs, articles clipped from old newspapers, books, so many books. I kidded her about her landlord. “He’s such a sweetheart!” I’d say. She had a particular interest in my library assistant job at the women’s college, Bryn Mawr. She asked me to describe the library, the campus, to tell her about the many characters amongst the students and faculty. I think she wished she went there. I brought friends in to meet her, my cat, and her favorite foods, doughnuts and Coke. Over time, I saw all the sides of Dorothy’s personality. When the Philadelphia summer heat and humidity rose to extremes, she answered the door either naked or topless, a funny smile on her face, acting like nothing was unusual. She liked to tease me. When I asked her if she thought I’d marry someday, she smirked and said, “No, I think you’ll die an old maid.” But once, after I entered her apartment and was confronted by a particularly bad wave of odor, she said, “I’m sorry I’m so disgusting,” hiding her face in sadness and shame. One day, after many years, Dorothy asked me to bathe her. We moved into the bathroom, where she undressed and sat on a chair in the shower stall, naked, hot water pressing down, steam rising up in both of our faces. I took soap and a ragged washcloth and moved it around her body. When I finished, I turned the water off and helped her dry and dress. In this quiet moment she exposed her deepest need, and by doing so helped me grow beyond my fear and limitations. Dorothy eventually had to move into a nursing home. Her landlord called to tell me to look over her things because he would soon throw it all in the trash. I rushed over, disgusted by the way he’d piled everything she owned into one garbage heap. I didn’t know what to take. I reached into the mess and pulled out a box of pictures and a matching white and pink floral china cake plate and sugar bowl – ephemeral, breakable things like Dorothy, like me. A few years later, when Dorothy died, Maris and I attended a small memorial for her at her church. There were about five of us there who knew Dorothy, but I was the only one who called her a friend. I brought the pictures and showed everyone how pretty the young Dorothy had been, how once her apartment had been neat as a pin, something she felt proud of, something she wanted to remember by taking a photo. Maybe she knew it could not, would not, last. Maggie Nerz Iribarne practices writing in a yellow house in Syracuse, New York. Her story, “Somewhere Else,” recently won a finalist prize in the 2021 Zizzle Literary Flash Fiction contest. She keeps a portfolio of her published work at https://www.maggienerziribarne.com. This is an essay about my elderly lady friend, Dorothy, and how our relationship pushed me outside of my comfort zone and taught me understanding and compassion.
By Zhigang (www.zhigangart.com)
Art by Ayshe-Mira Yashin Ayshe-Mira Yashin is an 18-year-old illustration artist from Istanbul, Turkey, and Nicosia, Cyprus. She is based in London, England, and is an art foundation student at UAL (Camberwell). She is of Jewish and Muslim heritage, and is a practicing witch. Themes of the occult and spirituality are often incorporated into her art, one of her most recent projects being the Sapphic Enchantress Tarot Deck, a tarot deck representing queer and femme bodies, exploring divine femininity. You can find the tarot deck, as well as her other zines, handmade notebooks and art prints, on her independently managed shop, or on Etsy (see links below). She is currently working on an illustrated poetry zine, to be published by Zines and Things (Portland, OR) in 2022. Her art has been exhibited at The Holy Art Gallery (Hackney, London) and at M. A. D. S. (Milan, Italy). She was awarded the Power of Creativity award (by Contemporary Art Creator Magazine) in 2021. In my art, the depiction of sapphic women situated in natural settings is a subtle response to the homophobic reduction of queer love and intimacy to something that is “unnatural”. I attempt to express our truth: that not only are we not “unnatural”, but we are, in fact, nature within ourselves. In terms of my depiction of female bodies, I am always inspired by the beauty of real women, as a statement against the mainstream symbolic violence that is wrought upon women through their representation in ways that would appeal to the male gaze, and ways that reduce them to only responding to the male gaze. In terms of spirituality within my art, my use of pagan imagery is what I consider to be art magic. Art magic is a path within the occult whereby one can use artistic medium in spellwork or in one’s spirituality. Many art witches incorporate certain materials into their art which carry certain energies, and create a spell or a charmed piece in doing so. Art witches might also incorporate sigils or spiritual symbols in their work to correspond to a particular meaning. Also, a common practice within art magic is to illustrate an event or circumstance which one might want to manifest, almost like a prayer. I did this as part of my pagan witchcraft practice, illustrating specific herbs to evoke certain energies within my art. Art magic can be used to manifest results such as protection, healing, prosperity, or anything else, depending on the herbs and images that are used. • Website/online portfolio/shop: https://www.ayshemira.com • Etsy: @theillustrationwitch • Instagram/TikTok: @illustrationwitch • Facebook/Upwork: Ayshe-Mira Yashin • Email: ayshemirawrites@gmail.com • Paypal (for donations towards art): https://www.paypal.me/ayshemira
Dating as an autistic teen online Words by DAVID SALAZAR A. I am turning eighteen on September 15, 2021, and I have never gotten my hand held romantically, nor been kissed, much less have slept with someone. And yet, I've been in multiple romantic relationships through the wonder of online dating. As an autistic trans person, dating in real life is all sorts of difficult. Always being the awkward quiet one has led me into various situations that have convinced me to never try my luck when it comes to my classmates—when I was younger, I was the kid that got asked out as a joke. Not to mention how it feels to be an outcast in a room full of neurotypical people, all of them getting along while I get teased, mocked or just softly ignored. And I have things in common with some of my classmates, of course, especially those that are also neurodivergent, but then another problem hits me right in the face: being trans. Closeted yet still most of them knowing by how obvious I make it, no one wants me at my little Catholic school. And why would they? So I turned to social media, talking in English about my interests with like-minded LGBT people. Being thirteen and mentally ill on the Internet made it easy to form relationships with other mentally ill teenagers, from friendships to misguided crushes to actual dating. Most people find impossible the idea of dating someone without the certainty of ever seeing them in physical person, but I've never particularly minded. My main love language isn't touch, although it is nice, so I can hold onto their voice and quality time just fine. My first long-term relationship was when I was thirteen, with a person who went by Finley. We lasted a year and four months, with it crumbling by the year mark but us still going on, hoping it'd fix itself. We had arguments, breakdowns and periods of silence, until we finally called it quits in May 2017. Afterward I realized one of the biggest problems in our relationship was the fact we were horribly codependent—we didn't talk to other people at length. It was just the two of us, and when our interests changed, suddenly we had nothing to talk about. It still had its moments, of course—we talked about meeting, even though realistically it wouldn't happen, and on their birthday I bought flowers off a shop near where they lived so it'd get to them then. For the rest of 2017, I worked hard at getting better. Therapy, medication, school. I started to have friends, real ones, not the kind I only talked to a couple times and then liked their posts on social media. We chatted, voice called, played games together in this little Discord server that became a second home for me. To this day I am still in that server, and while some of them are closer to me than others, I consider them all my friends.
On April 2018, I met Jacques. He sent me multiple anonymous questions on Tumblr and I, agreeing with him on many topics, asked him to please come off anonymity so we could talk one-on-one. He did. We became good friends and fumbled around with what our feelings for each other were for a while, until we started dating on August 2018. I am writing this on June 2021, and we are still together. His existence and our relationship is one of the many things that make me truly believe in the possibility of online relationships. While of course we've had our disagreements and our personal dramas, never have I felt so happy in my life. Who is to say that only the people you could meet in person are meant for you? Who is to say that before the Internet, there weren't soulmates lost all over the world, connected by a thread but too far away to ever meet? There is connection, souls made of the same stuff, and there is no reason why these souls would be dropped at the same place on Earth. I'm from Chile, and I still live here, and will for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, Jacques is from the US—Alabama, to be exact. We've been dating for nearly three years and there's still no chance for us to meet, mostly because of the pandemic but also because of money issues. Still, we may be able to meet next year, when everything is better, in his summer and my winter. H's not used to the cold, so we'll have to huddle up under the blankets, which is a win-win in my book. Every online relationship and online friendship has left me warm inside, teaching me that the world is not just your city, your region, your country, your continent. People all over the world have things in common with you, all you have to do is search for them among the inescapable void of the web. I think of Saadia, a girl from Saudi Arabia I was close to for two years before she disappeared off the Internet; I wonder what happened to her, but hold her in the memory of hearing her talk in Urdu to her parents while on the phone with me. I think of Irish, my very first proper online friend, who sent me two CDs of my favorite band at the time, a friendship necklace and a handwritten letter through post when I was only twelve and they were only thirteen. I don't know where I'd be without the Internet, without being able to connect to people so far away but so similar to me. Isolated, probably. Every day I talk to people I will likely never meet physically, and what can I do but smile and laugh at their texts? What can I do but watch a show with them by sharing my screen? I have to cherish them, even if their touch is the farthest away it could be. What matters is that they're there for me, even if they can't hug me. I'm glad the Internet exists. If I was born a couple of decades before I was, I probably wouldn'thave made it very far. I can't help but be thankful for the world that exists out there, inside a screen.
WINNER OF THE SPRING SUMMER CONTEST: YUTONG YANG
Lonely Hearts Words by YUTONG YANG
Laura is sitting under a fig tree at an open-air café on the plaza where she works. Sherecalls those earlier moments when Michael would pull up in his Dad’s hooptie, and they'd shore lunch—soup, salad, and lighthearted banter. They were a young couple discovering themselves, exploring their feelings. Life was good. But time passed. And she waited. Laura Gazes into the distance, savoring the crisp maritime breeze tickling her cheek. She’s thankful for this escape from her busy routine, sipping coffee, pondering the possibilities. Her phone buzzes. With raised brows she peers at the name appearing on the screen: “Freddie.” Who knows, she smiles to herself, briefly shifting her eyes over her new blouse, so pretty in mauve, her favorite color.
Growing up, Laura always had a fondness for trifles. Friday was her favorite day of the week. On those afternoons, she could ramble on and on in that lovely little flea market next to her school. She would bargain with the elderly gentleman behind the counter of the antique shop, treasuring each of her newly-acquired spoils: rusted trinkets or “aristocratic heirlooms,” heart-shaped charms, ivory chess pieces. Her most beloved jewel by far was herKintsugi bowl. It was a gift from the owner of the antique shop, who always had broken pieces of a vase or plate in his hands. Laura was never one to toss her treasures aside once the luster wore off. She Always Believed in fixing what was broken. When she had broken her favorite bowl that she bathed her flower petals in, the shopkeeper graciously offered to repair it. Several weeks later, she was astounded to see her bowl now appeared brand new yet barely recognizable for its beautiful golden streaks mending its previous cracks; she marveled that this dazzling beauty, nearly given up on as gone, existed again. “Remember, young lady, anything can be fixed once you set your mind to it.” She’s never forgotten those words since that day she left the shop. Laura and Michael’s flame had long since burned out. She often notices the light still on in his room during the small hours when she can’t sleep. He’s present… she’s present…but no words are spoken. They’re joined together in their separation, united in their isolation—shattered pieces beyond repair. She longs for other lonely souls looking for something… someone. He’s always so busy, she sighs. How nice it would be if only he had something to say to her; if she could occupy even a fraction of the space consumed by his business partners. They drifted along in a sea of indifference, neither knowing how to row forward, or lookback to what led them to this place; or what led them to find each other in the first place. And then Laura met Freddie. He knows how to make her laugh, just like Michael used to. They exchanged favorite quotes, favorite songs, and favorite films—they connected, just like she once did with Michael. Freddie was responsive during their late evening chat fests. He wasn’t a workaholic up till all hours of the night in his private lair locked away in solitude. So many times she wanted to push the door open, to re-enter Michael’s life, yet she was never invited. Where had she gone wrong? Didn’t he also miss her? Their long walks together, the late movies, the laughter. A couple consumed by the busyness of life, no longer had any room for love. She lamented. But still, she hesitated when Freddie asked her to meet. At first, she felt guilty about reaching out to strangers on the Internet. However, she finally managed to convince herself that she deserved to be happy again, and since Michael had seemingly disappeared from her life anyway… sometimes things simply can’t be repaired and we must start anew. She had butterflies in her stomach as she prepared for their first meeting. Freddie would be wearing a teal sweater. How lovely, just like the glimmering sea where sheusedtospend wonderful summers with… what’s his name. And what did he wear this morning?Some ugly greenish thing. As Freddie approached, she sprang to her feet and stretched for a closer look, sensing this new opportunity. Her heart was racing. Then, suddenly missed a beat. Wait, what’sMichael doing here? He strode straight to the counter. “Excuse me, but have you seen a lady in mauve waiting for some time?” And the waitress pointed to Laura.
By Zhigang (www.zhigangart.com)
thank you for reading <3 much love - ogma team