OGMA // ISSUE 02

JULY ISSUE

OGMA MAGAZINE

CLASSICS - 01 OGMA STORIES - 06

OGMA POEMS - 32 OGMA NON-FICTION - 54

EDITOR'S LETTER JULY ISSUE: "HUMANS"

Welcome to the second issue of The Ogma Magazine. I am so pleased with the success of the mag, our first issue was so much fun to make and I can't wait for more to come. I would like to thank everyone who submitted work this month, this magazine would not be possible without you and we are so grateful and proud to have a place to showcase the talents of the writeblr community.

Of course, a massive thank you to the Ogma Team, you guys are amazing and help bring this mag to life! Behind the scenes can get pretty hectic but I can always rely on the team to help.

This month's theme is actually my favorite so far– it's all about "Humans." This is so broad and interesting and I hope you enjoy reading the pieces inspired by the nature of humans, humanity and life.

-Aneleh THE EDITOR

OGMA STAFF meet the team.

Editor Content Writer & Social Media Coordinator

Aneleh Parker

Copy Editor Copy Editor Photo Editor Photographer Content Writer & Music Coordinator

Nicole Goldie Abby ZoĂŠ Celeste

Literary Reviews Content Writer Content Writer Content Writer Content Writer Content Writer Content Writer Content Writer Content Writer Content Writer Content Writer Content Writer

Jade Carmen Dian Iman Jesse Katie Laura Lucia Molly Norah Sakeenah Zhana

/CONTENTS CLASSICS EDITOR'S LETTER CONTENT STAFF

02 04 05

OGMA POEMS VOICES LIGHT YEARS AWAY THE FIRST WALK ARE WE NOT ICARUS? FEARFUL CONFESSION FRAGMENTS TO THIS GENERATION BREATHE EULOGIES FOR AN AUTOPSY OF EARTHFLOW

OGMA STORIES 32 33 34 36 37 38 39 40 41 43

ENHANCED CANTUÑA AND THE DEVIL ENTRY LOG THE ANSWER, MY DARLING, IS ALWAYS "TO BE" MY HANDS ARE COLD THE HUMAN SYSTEM

06 09 20 24

27 30

OGMA NON-FICTION INTERVIEW SPACE, RACE & ROSWELL NEW MEXICO'S AWFUL ALLERGY

54 60

0202 YLUJ/

ENHANCED SHORT STORY BY JADE ASHLEY

@tezra-jade Half a dozen of them huddled around the observation window. Their stiffly starched coats are nearly painful to the eyes to look upon. The bright appearance of cleanliness extended in all directions from them.

Manufactured, synthetic walls, floor, and ceiling all gleam mean--that same unnatural shade of #000000.

You hated it. To look on it brings a sense of loss, for you know that #000000 can only be manufactured. It does not naturally occur any longer on Earth.

There is far too much pollution. Maybe it never really existed in the natural world. How would you know? The history of the world and of humanity has been written and rewritten time and time again by those who were victorious in war. You can only be certain about the here and now.

In this too white room behind the half glass walls, you are both observing and being observed. This is your gift. You have established a neural link with the environmental system for the building where you are being held.

Achieved through forced genetic mutation and biotechnology, you have become a living, breathing member of the internet of things. Adjusting to the enhancements felt slow to you, but the time required is less than the coat wearers anticipated. They have not realized what you can do, what they made you into.

You discovered what you were capable of gradually. When feeling too warm, you found you could adjust the thermostat with just a thought. So much is automated and surveilled, you found little limitation on your capacities. Little things amused you. Your body performed completely unnecessary reactions on old residual instinct.

Your eyes still narrowed to dim the light that your mind thought was coming into them when what you were perceiving was not being witnessed by your eyes, but by cameras scattered here and there in the facility. That bodily instinct, for a reason you cannot quite pinpoint, made you giggle.

This earned whispers from the coats. Furtive looks were exchanged by the lot. Did they have any idea you could hear every word?

Everyone seemed to react to the tech differently. Your observers cannot discern yet how you have reacted. You never imagined this would be how it was for you. You thought you might end up super strong or with some other equally menial enhancement. But this is so much better than that. When you first awoke, your awareness had been only of the room you lay in. You could feel and sense the plethora of machines with a perception that went well beyond hearing the audible beeping of the machine monitoring your heart. That awareness grew as time passed, letting you observe your observers--and it had continued to grow.

The sheer volume of information had been dizzying. You’d had to figure out —and quickly—how not to be overrun by it. Somehow you knew if you did not take care, you would have been driven mad by the onslaught. Before testing the limits of how far you could 'reach,' you figured out how to filter and limit what you processed. It felt like this took you quite a long time. But barely a minute had passed. Time was experienced quite differently by you now. So those theories of relativity held muster after all.

With the torrent of information siphoned to only what you choose to accept, you pushed the edges of your awareness out. Floor upon floor, your consciousness seemed to rise. You became aware of so many things, most trivial—a perfectly cliché affair played out over pathetic sexting (you outed them to their spouses), the vending machine in robotics out of order (you fixed it), and someone was undergoing the procedures to try to be like you (you watched this for quite a length of time).

Your awareness grew and spread until it had reached the lobby of this gargantuan facility. You heard an oddly familiar digital voice. It was a feminine timber with distinctly robotic diction. The message was one you had heard before‌however many days, weeks, or months ago when you had arrived in the transport of convicts and terminal patients.

Welcome to Heroic Corp, the place where Heroes are made!

We are so glad you have chosen to become a hero for humanity!

The message had been laughable then. No one chose to come here. Now, it seemed ironic for a new reason.

Were you really still part of humanity?

CANTUÑA AND THE DEVIL SHORT STORY BY LUCIA TRASK

@luciatraskwrites It is a bright, summer afternoon and the sun beams down on the city of Quito. Cantuña walks through the cobblestone streets, his companion Alonso struggling to keep up with him. Young children tear through the streets shrieking with laughter, scolding mothers chase after them, market stands flaunt their colorful tapestries and pottery glossy in the sunshine.

Quito, Cantuña thinks, truly comes alive during the summer.

Alonso manages to push his way through the crowd and catches up with him at last. He scrubs at the sweat on his forehead with his sleeve. “There you are, Cantuña! You have got to start walking more slowly. I can’t keep up with you!”

“Sorry about that,” Cantuña says. “We both know I’m not very good at taking my time. That’s something I’ve got to work on.”

Alonso is a tall young man—a Chachi from the Cayapas river—with skin the color of terra cotta and curls of dark hair framing his face, quite different from the half-Spaniard Cantuña with fair skin and limp blonde hair. The only similarity they have are their eyes: Bright, dark brown.

“I just wanted to talk to you about that most recent project you decided to take up.”

“Which one?” “…Don’t tell me you took up multiple jobs again.”

“Just six this month—I swear! That’s three less than last month.”

“If I’m being completely honest, that’s six too many. But look here, Cantuña, I’m talking about the job the head priest gave you.”

“Yes, yes. I said I’d build the atrium for the future San Francisco church.”

“I see.” Alonso sighs.

“What’s the matter, Alonso? Are you not feeling alright? I know you don’t do too well in hot weather. Do you need water? Somewhere a bit cooler to stay?”

“None of that. Listen, Cantuña. I know I say this a lot, but… I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea.”

“Of course not.” Alonso looks at him, the worry lines creasing his face beginning to soften.

“It’s a great idea!” Back come the worry lines.

“Cantuña—” “It’s absolutely perfect. The head priest promised me quite a payment in exchange for completing the church atrium. As a result of my work, I’ll earn more respect and become one of the most prominent architects in the land while the church gets a lovely new atrium for all of Quito to see. Both of us benefit, Alonso! It’s not very often that you stumble across a job as good as this.”

“Well, alright then. I’m sure you’ll be able to manage.” The worry lines begin to soften on Alonso’s face. “Say, how much time do you have to complete this project?”

“Two weeks.”

“Two weeks?!”

Alonso echoes the words in a high-pitched shriek, loud enough for a mother and her two children crossing the street to give him a bug-eyed glare before moving on. Then he tries to smile at the mother, although his expression is less of a soft and sheepish smile and more of his jaw muscles freezing up in sickly grimace.

“Sorry,” he forces out. Turning away from the perturbed passerby he looks back to Cantuña. “Two weeks? That’s not nearly enough time to finish building a church atrium, Cantuña! You’ve been an architect for long enough to know that the process of building something - designing it, preparing the construction, framing, building, everything - can take up to months, even years! You’ve been an architect long enough to know that!”

Cantuña shrugs. “A deal’s a deal, Alonso. We’re both well aware that I’m not one to take back promises—it’ll look bad on my part if I do it now.”

And think about what they’ll say of you, too, he thinks to himself. If you back out of this job now they’ll say that you’re just another lazy, good-for-nothing unreliable mestizo who won’t even do things in the name of the God he so claims to love and prays three times a day to. And haven’t you been the one trying to say that you aren’t that for your whole life?

“It’s impossible for you to build an entire church atrium in two weeks. Yes, you’ve managed with other projects in the past but… please, for the love of God, Cantuña, listen to me when I tell you that you won’t be able to manage this time. Please. Don’t tire yourself out and overwork yourself like this.”

“I’m not tired at all, Alonso—look at me!” Cantuña hops over one of the cracks in the sidewalk. “I’m absolutely sure I’ll be able to build the church atrium in time for the head priest and the rest of Quito in the time I’ve been given. Our Lord will give me the strength to finish this building, and we’ll be able to have enough money to buy a bigger house where we can live together!"

“Well,” Alonso says as he scratches the back of his head, “I can at least appreciate the ambition, Cantuña. And I mean, where we live now is rather cramped.”

“I’m glad that you can appreciate it. The church atrium will look beautiful in the end, and we’ll be paid such an enormous sum of money - four hundred thirty five thousand maravedis, just think - that we’ll never have to so much as glance at that wretched little shack we’re living in now ever again. I’m going to finish this project.”

“I’m never going to be able to finish this project!”

Cantuña slumps over the desk, his forehead hitting the wooden surface.

Two weeks, he’d told Alonso earlier, two weeks was the time he was given and all the time he would need. Two weeks, as it turned out, was not nearly enough time to finish, let alone even begin the six other buildings he’d been promised to build. And the church atrium still stands barely completed, the bricks piling up but no roof touching the sun. So he sits in the corner of the room, watching the sunlight slip away.

“Cantuña?” Alonso opens the door to their room, voice only a little louder than the door creaking on its hinges. Cantuña looks up at the sound of his voice and tilts his head up to look at him with dull brown eyes rimmed with dark circles. He’s spent days toiling away and heaving the construction into place, and every time the head priest stops by to ask how construction is going Cantuña gives him a nod of his head and answers with “Quite well”, even though he knows that the church atrium will take far more than two weeks. But he’s trapped in that deal, and needs that money. He needs for the people of Quito to see beyond what they think are the muddled features of his face once they get a look at the church atrium.

He’d spent days praying. God, he’s asked with clasped hands, grant me the speed and strength to finish this church atrium in Your name. I need it, I need that strength so as to pay tribute to You and all that stands for You. Amen. His prayers had never been answered, the building’s still far from finished. No thanks to God. “You were right.” His voice cracks and waivers from fatigue. “You were right when you said this would take longer than two weeks. I’ve got only one day left to finish this project and woke up in a panic after falling asleep after the first four days. Then I lost track of the nights I hadn’t gone to sleep.”

He waits to hear Alonso respond that he’d told him so. That he’d overestimated and look what he’d done, he’d never get that church atrium finished. But instead Alonso kneels next to him and takes hold of his hand, tracing his finger over the knuckles and marks patterning Cantuna’s skin.

“Now that I can’t get that atrium finished, everyone’s just going to see me as some kind of disgusting, cheating and arrogant mestizo who lies about his experience and—”

“Except you’re not any of those things, Cantuña. You’re an ambitious man, and ambition is hardly a bad thing.”

“I’m going to be the laughingstock of Quito, Alonso! They’re all going to mock me and see me for the incompetent architect I am—” “And what about it? I know that isn’t true. Listen. I know things are difficult, Cantuña. Are you angry? Frustrated? Afraid?”

Cantuña nods.

“There’s no shame in feeling that way. But no one wants to stay like that forever—don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

Cantuña looks up from where he’s hunched over at his desk, straightening his posture.

“Bad to sit like this all the time. Damages your back,” he says with an uneven laugh.

“That’s the spirit. We’re going to find a way out of this.”

“And I hope that the end result’ll be that I get out of this with my dignity intact, or somehow get that atrium built. Although I doubt that the last one will happen. It’d take some sort of miracle to get it finished.”

A miracle.

Cantuña stares down at Alonso, dark hair and pointed chin haloed in orange-gold from the fading sunlight. Surely no holy miracle would get that church atrium finished—no matter how many times he’s clasped his hands together or his rosary beads and begged for help from God, he has never received an answer once. But an unholy miracle?

“Alright,” he says, “I think I know what I’m going to do.”

“That’s a start! What have you got in mind?”

He explains his plan to Alonso and slowly watches the slight smile from earlier crumble into a grimace. Alonso presses his lips into a thin line, the worry lines distorting his face.

“You want to what?”

“I swear to—“ Cantuña cuts himself off, if there’s a God out there he surely wouldn’t want Him overhearing him “—you that this will work.”

“You know what happened to that doctor? All the way in Germany? Where his fate after he’d dabbled in the unholy was so horrible that it reached all the way to here?”

“Firstly, he didn’t know what he was in for. I do. Come on, where’s that love of mine who said my ambition wasn’t a bad thing?”

“Not if you’re doing… this. Cantuña, I love you and admire your ambition.

That much we both know and have known for a long time. But what in any way made you think this was a good idea?”

“I never said it was a good idea. I just said that it would work. And to be frank, I see no other options. If we have to rely on someone like that for help, then so be it.” Cantuña leans over to dot a kiss to Alonso’s brow.

“Don’t worry. I know exactly what I’m going to do—I just can’t say it outright in case we’re overheard by the very one we’re trying to get help from.”

Alonso shakes his head, yet presses his lips to Cantuña’s forehead.

“And I guess if you put it that way… this has to work. There are many things you are, Cantuña, and an idiot is not one of them.”

He makes quick work when night falls. First, he shooes Alonso out of the house. He needs this to work, and can’t risk Alonso getting mixed up in everything. Cantuña lights the candles—red, like Cantuña knows they need, or else the Devil himself won’t come. For a moment there is nothing and then in the dark of the room comes the tiny flickering of white flame tips against the candles. He sits in the circle of salt, pins and needles prickling at his legs. It is a peculiar thing to be alone at last, with nothing but the moonlight and candles illuminating his surroundings. Like he has before at night, Cantuña prays—not to God, but to someone else.

Lord Satan, he pleads, I seek out your assistance at this late hour. I need someone to hear my prayers. To help me in my time of need. I will do anything in exchange for your help. Give up my soul, even, if that is the price I must pay.

He doesn’t know if he’s doing it correctly. He keeps his eyes closed, waiting for nothing. The candle will be snuffed out and he’ll get up knowing that it’s all hopeless, that— “You called?”

Cantuña opens his eyes. The man that stands before him looks nothing like the fork-tongued creature from the art he’s seen or the cloven-hoofed demon described. He’s rather tall, with long blonde hair and clothing in dark blue draped over him. The features of his face are sharp but decidedly human. Only two things point to this man being anything other than human: The first are the bright glow of his red eyes, the second are the two goat-like horns protruding from his head.

Cantuña swallows, listening to his own spit slide down his throat. “Yes, ah— come to think of it, what do I call you?”

The devil shrugs. “I go by many names: Lucifer, Satan, Mephistopheles. I’m not particularly picky about which one.”

“I suppose Satan will do, then. If you’re alright with that name.”

“I already said I was. Satan it is, then. Lord Satan, just to be safe. But I don’t think you summoned me here to discuss names—which don’t matter in the first place to me, anyways.” Satan smiles, his sharp canines gleaming white in the dark. “What we are here to discuss, I believe, is business. What do you want?”

“I was given the task of building the San Francisco church atrium, but I can’t possibly finish it in the time they gave me. God wouldn’t listen to my prayers, so I summoned you. I need you to build the church—the quicker, the better.”

“Well, I can’t exactly parade around in the finished results. But there’s nothing that prevents me from building the church from the outside in. I can even get some of my servants to finish if I can’t.”

“How quickly do you think you can finish it?”

“In a single night or less.”

“Really?”

“Of course. But if I’m to keep my end of the deal, then you’ll keep yours, won’t you? You know the price.”

Cantuña looks at the floor. “My soul.”

“Good, good. Then I suppose we can—” “We’re not done yet, Lord Satan.”

He raises an eyebrow at Cantuña. “You’re quite the bargainer, Cantuña.

Quite different from that Faust fellow. I like it.”

“I will give my soul to you if you have every single brick in place by the time the sun comes up. If a single brick happens to be missing or you can’t finish it, then the deal is off.”

“That’s a very specific condition. But I’ll follow it.”

“Good. You know, for all the stories I’ve heard about you, when you barter with people you make good on your promises.”

Satan scratches at one of his horns. “If I didn’t, there would be no stories to tell.”

“I’m glad that we’ve made our pact clear, Lord Satan. Hopefully you can get this project started on by tonight?”

“If that’s what you want, sure. Just remember—keep your end of the deal!

I’ll be sure to give you a hearty greeting when your soul is dragged to Hell!”

In an instant, he is gone. No lingering smoke, no noise, no fading—the devil is gone as soon as he appeared. Cantuña stares at the spot where he once stood, checks as if keeping watch for any eyes or ears that might overhear what he has to think.

Boast all you want, but I won’t be going down to Hell any time soon.

Then he stuffs his pockets full of salt and sprints down the stairs and into the city streets, creaky floorboards squealing in protest beneath his feet.

Alonso waits outside of the house before him, eyes looking up and down at his salt-stained pockets and his chest heaving for air.

“I take it went well?” Cantuña nods, then takes him by the wrist. “We have to work fast, though—to the San Francisco atrium! Hurry!”

They race through the darkened streets, kicking up gravel as their boots thud on the ground. The summer air’s humidity is mild tonight. Cantuña and Alonso zig-zag past the few solitary people walking through the streets of Quito at night, making their way through the twisting streets till they halt before the San Francisco church atrium. It looks far more finished than it was before—the brick walls growing higher, as though unseen hands were taking them out of thin air and placing them atop one another. Alonso stares open mouthed at the sight.

“I see that my handiwork has caught your eye, hasn’t it?”

Satan stands there next to the two of them, gesturing up towards the building. Alonso’s mouth opens and closes, goldfish-like, no words found till he clears his throat and does his best to speak.

“You—I—I—the—” Cantuña nods. “Yes. This is Alonso, my lover.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Alonso. And it’s a pleasure to meet your lover and work for him, too—I’ll be seeing him in my realm when he at last passes on.”

“And I suppose I’ll be down there with him?”

Satan stares at Alonso blankly. “What?”

“Well, I thought that a man could go to hell for being with another man. At least that’s what those around us have always said.”

“Oh, no. There are far better reasons to end up in my realm than that. Liars, murderers, people who deliberately give up their souls for my service. Like Cantuña here.”

“Indeed. You’re making quite a bit of progress, Lord Satan. Good progress.”

“Why, thank you. I better check up on my servants to make sure they’re putting in good work.”

When he vanishes Alonso turns to Cantuña. First, out comes a mangled gurgling noise. Then: “What are we going to do? I don’t want you to go to hell!”

“I’m not going to hell, Alonso.”

“You’re not? But—that was the devil! And he said—” “He said it, but that is far from what’s going to happen. I just need to be sure he doesn’t have an eye for detail.”

Cantuña races up to the church and pries a stone free, hiding it in his pocket and running back to Alonso. Silent, he takes the brick from Cantuña and stuffs it into his pocket.

“I better go. If anyone’s going to be facing the devil’s wrath, I’d rather it be me than you.” He gives Cantuña a kiss, the taste of cinnamon from candies he’d eaten earlier fleeting in Cantuña’s mouth. Then he’s pacing down the streets of Quito once more, leaving Cantuña alone.

“Alonso left.”

Cantuña knows that a pair of red, red eyes will be staring back at him when he turns to meet the devil.

“Well, he seemed to be very tired. Don’t think that the middle of the streets is a very comfortable place to sleep.”

“True.”

I must look him directly in the eye, thinks Cantuña, and not think about what just happened.

“I suppose you’ll want to be heading home, too. Understandable,” says Satan.

“No. I think I’ll stay here and watch your progress. Besides, the stars are remarkably pretty tonight.”

There are stray dots of white patterning the blue-almost-black sky, glowing bright even behind the passing clouds that shroud them every now and then. They are quiet, Cantuña and Satan, staring up at the sky as though they might be swallowed up by it if they look too long.

“Indeed, they are.”

“Well, Cantuña, it looks as though my work here is done.”

Dawn has come. The church stands in white beneath the dusty pink sky. The two towers scrape at the clouds. Aside from the missing brick—which even Cantuña isn’t sure has been replaced—not a stone is out of place.

“I’m impressed.”

“Good. You’ll keep your end of the bargain, people will be awestruck when they gaze upon the church—everyone’s happy.”

“Well, not exactly.”

Something flashes over Satan’s face, thunder in a summer storm.

“What?”

Cantuña hurries over to the wall of the church he’d been acutely observing the night before. Please be missing, he thinks to himself, please, please be missing— He finds a gap between the bricks and points to it.

“You see that? A single brick missing. And I said I wanted every single brick in place by dawn. Well, one brick is missing, so… I get my nearly-finished church and my soul.” A part of him thinks maybe it’s best not to tempt fate, yet still he adds, “Nothing to be ashamed of. We can’t always be perfect.”

Satan twitches a little. When he speaks at last, his voice is about the same volume as dead leaves rustling on the ground. “I see. And I promised to make good on my end of the bargain, so I will.”

Oh dear. “I can give you my soul if you want, Lord Satan, I mean—” “No. No. No need for that. I think I’ll be on my way. Being a little too close to this near-finished church is—” He pauses to sneeze into his hand. When he looks up his nose is tinted pink.

“—causing my allergies to act up.”

“Ah. Well in that case, I… I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

“Whatever you see fit,” Satan declares between sniffles, “I’ll be on my way back to my realm. A deal’s a deal, and I suppose I won’t be seeing you any time soon after this. Or ever, for that matter. My work here is done.”

When Satan disappears, Cantuña does not go back immediately. He thinks about all that has occured in the past night. He thinks about Alonso, how the devil himself confirmed that they won’t go to hell for simply loving one another. He thinks about God, he thinks about that missing brick Alonso keeps cradled to his chest. He thinks about the future and the past and the present and himself and many more things, keeping his eye on the rising sun.

ENTRY LOG SHORT STORY BY ELIANA SUSSNER

@elliewritestories “ENTRY LOG - Ship NW-382” File 1 - February 19, 2846 This is Day 1 of the human imprisonment aboard the ship, tracking number 19-204413. Both subjects are secured in their cell and have both been fed for the day, though with a decent struggle. Upon transport back to the home planet, subjects may appear bruised or scratched, though I can assure you that this was not my fault and should not serve as evidence of poor performance Male demands to be referred to as “Owen” and female demands to be referred to as “Annie”, though for the purpose of efficiency when logging these messages, they will be referred to as “X” and “Y” respectively.

X attempted to harm me during capture by utilizing a lighting device present on his nightstand and in the process broke his own wrist. In my professional opinion, I believe he knew I was stronger than he was, as evidenced by the anxiety which appeared to halt his movements. Y, on the other hand, did not seem to resist, either out of similar anxiety or sorrowful resignation to her own fate. She told me to please remain quiet, as her mother was sleeping in the other room, and if I had to take her, please also take her medicine, which I ignored. These were the only things she told me.

Please see audio files for the recording.

I have not informed them about their reason for imprisonment, nor the markets in which their labor will be sold. Both X and Y have spent the last six hours performing what Y calls “praying”. I am to assume this implies a weakened state. I imagine this will make for docile transport. Details to follow.

File 2 - February 24, 2846 This is Day 6 of human imprisonment aboard the ship. Today, X has attempted to free himself while I stopped momentarily to restock on fuel cells, though this attempt was unsuccessful. For this reason, I have removed all furniture from X and Y’s living space. Please note, X enjoys using blunt objects to get his way.

I spent long lengths of time today studying the subjects, even skipping my high sun meal. Again, X and Y began to “pray” each time I brought them food and when they assumed I was out of earshot. I have found myself listening to their words, confused as to what they mean but satisfied that their mental states appear stable as a result.

Though X and Y did not previously have contact on Earth, they spent a long period of time providing emotional assistance to one another. I thought this strange, as X seems increasingly comfortable adjusting to Y’s emotional state. Today, when Y appeared upset, he told her a humorous expression in order to make her smile instead of attempting to touch her as he previously did the day before, which seemed to make Y uncomfortable.

I find myself listening to their stories as well. X lived with five other brothers, two of whom had fought in wars and one of whom has died as a result. X appears to be the oldest of this group. Y lived alone with her sick mother and struggled to pay medical fees with a variety of low-paying jobs as she pursued a musical career… Computer, strike the last three sentences. Mark as irrelevant.

File 3 - March 2, 2846 This is Day 12. X and Y have begun to practice rituals together, including regular exercises and riddle games. What is the most fascinating is that Y’s mental state appears to be improving although her physical abilities seem to be declining. I am unsure of why this is the case, as both subjects are being fed regularly. After three to four sets of exercises, Y feels the need to sit down and catch her breath.

Earlier today I grew so worried I opened the door to their cell with water and medication. I expected X to attack me as he has done in the past, but this time he stepped towards the wall and watched me as I tilted her head back in order to deliver water to her lips. This is the second time I have seen fear in his eyes.

When Y was beginning to feel better, I prepared myself to leave, but she asked me to stay, though the male seemed hesitant during the duration of my visit. I attempted a humorous expression as I had seen X deliver in the past, which made both X and Y smile, though I felt this was out of pity rather than genuine humor.

I asked X and Y if it would be beneficial to them if I played music, so I have been able to intercept an Earth radio signal, which now plays constantly in the ship. I am told this music is called “reggae”. X in particular enjoys this music, and the morale of both subjects appears to be interlinked. Bob Marley is his favorite.

File 4 - March 6, 2846 I don’t remember what day it is. Something is not right. Y has been sick for the past few days and she isn’t doing better. I don’t know what to do. They didn’t cover this at the academy. I’ve made several stops to various outposts looking for medicine, none of which is compatible with her body. I even picked up salves for X’s wrist which I thought would make me feel better. When Y is conscious she tells me the details about a genetic blood disorder that her mother passed down to her, and when she isn’t, she looks dead. I’m not sure who’s more disturbed by this, X or myself.

In the moments when Y is strong enough to sit up, she and X have begun to sing together. I assume this is another form of “prayer”, though the lyrical patterns seem different. When they begin, I am sure to turn down the music so that the noises do not conflict. Y’s voice is soft but X makes certain that their voices are the same volume so as not to alienate her. This makes my chest feel heavy.

File 5 - March 17, 2846 Annie died today.

File 6 - March 30, 2846 Owen taught me a prayer today. It’s short but I can remember it now. I don’t understand most of the words but I understand Owen better.

He is now teaching me many things. He taught me an Earth custom in which the body of the dead is buried in the ground rather than burned by solar ash and galactic ice in space, as my mother and father were. He taught me how to hold her head as she was lowered down. He taught me how to shut her eyes.

Perhaps helping to bury Annie is the best thing I have ever done. Owen spoke about her as we stood before her grave with hands clasped in front of us. I, too, wished to deliver a few words, but I said nothing.

Today, I will learn how to be silent. Tomorrow, I will learn how to sing.

THE ANSWER, MY DARLING, IS ALWAYS "TO BE".

BY DIAN LOH

@tokyo.di To be human is to be in constant search of the moments that make one feel alive. To be uncomfortably aware of one’s own flawed existence. To be present and conscious. To do more than just survive. Humanity, in all its grit and honesty, is the stunning combination of mortality, vulnerability, and humility. It is the rush of adrenaline that comes before a gratuitous grin. It is exposure and pure, unadulterated feeling. It is living.

To be human is simply, to choose to be.

There have been many times, however, when I’ve thought otherwise. To be human is excruciating and pointless, I’d often scoff, my learned cynicism acting like a shield of impenetrable defense. For most of my adolescence, I shied away from any human interaction — being social was simply outside of my comfort zone. Any instance where I could possibly be bullied, humiliated, embarrassed, or abused was immediately out of the question.

Neurotic and constantly suspicious of external motives, I never allowed myself the chance of experiencing something I wasn’t exceptionally prepared for. And back then I thought: why should I? Self-preservation is a prized possession, gifted to us by generations before. It’s the ultimate survival instinct, isn’t it? Yes? Then why does the exacting of my greatest fears in order to protect my fragile self-esteem not feel like living? I can only infer that this is because it isn’t. Survival is extremity. Living is balance.

Survival speaks of the bare minimum you have to do just so you can get by.

Forget the frivolities or anything that might injure your sense of self, you’ve simply got to stay alive. It’s intuitive, and fundamentally a knee-jerk reaction. Each morning, something within you churns and you push yourself off the ground and begin this hollow routine once more. You think that all is well, that you’re happy (kind of), that this is as good as Life gets, but in reality, it is all simply the decomposition of the soul. A bleak existence, the aimless staring, the mouthfuls of air free from meaning, is the first death.

Living is a delicate art that revolves around the embracing of uncertainties and the relinquishing of control. It is humanity at an ironic equilibrium. It is vivid, saturated, undeniably clear. It is, most of all, painfully simple. To truly live conveys the idea that you want this. You are knowingly, willingly, choosing to be alive, again and again, and again. It isn’t just gut instinct, it’s a deliberate selection. A selection that opens you up to all that Life has to offer in all its heartbreaking, spectacular, mortifying, and undoubtedly sensational glory. Plainly put: This is a catalogue, you are the customer and Life is a preference-free shopping spree.

This acceptance of your mortal state of being, I think, is, more than anything, intensely cathartic. It’s absolute surrender and release. I don’t believe I’ve ever felt more at ease than when I just let go of everything and gave myself permission to feel and be alive. Freeing my mind from the interconnected and highly complicated attachments it makes with situations that are beyond my own control provides me with immense calmness and tranquility. Welcoming tumultuous events with warm, coy smiles and good humour has brightened my days. In these moments, my peripheral vision is filled with light and where there is light, there are shadows in accompanied and appropriate capacity; the pair brings with them the balance that living encompasses. I’m not saying that I’m cured of all mental and emotional ails.

I’m still a precarious mess with unresolved trauma left to boil over on the backburner; and on occasion, resentment does begin to fester and I find myself on the brink of malice once more, bare toes tracing crumbling cliffs that lead to a chasmic graveyard of mistakes — all victims of self-sabotage.

It’s a never-ending process of growth and healing and I’ve only just begun.

The human journey is one without a definite destination but we should take care to enjoy it, for the views along the way are sublime.

Humanity is a colourful blend of complexities with a crystal clear core that is both telling and divinely vague. We are inquisitive creatures of limited circumstances, brimming with infinite questions. One might be presented with various remedies for these uncertainties but I hope you know, by mankind’s natural decree, the answer to choose is always, “To be.”

MY HANDS ARE COLD: PART I

BY PARKER WRIGHT

@gardenstparker THAT UNBEARABLE NOTHING WEEK AT THE END OF JUNE January Kane checked her phone again and sighed. They’d agreed to have practice at six, and now it was six fifteen and she was already tired and no one was there. Finally, the doorbell rang. She opened it to Vincent, a little pale, a little cocky, and not very sorry for himself at all.

“Lovely of you to join us,” she deadpanned.

He looked over her shoulder at the empty living room and smirked. “Us?” She rolled her eyes. “Fine, you beat everyone else, but you’re still late.

Come in.”

He did, tossing his notebook on a side table and flopping down on the couch. January took the armchair. “How’ve you been?” he asked, as if the scheduling of this band practice wasn’t by the grace of him answering his phone for the first time in nine days.

January pushed that out of her mind. “Fine, you?” He looked caught off guard by the question, and then a little sad. She was used to not getting the full story, but seeing him so visibly conflicted about it was new.

“Fine, I guess…” She still wasn’t used to how unfairly easy it had become to read him.

“It’s been… a lot.” That was one way to put it. If January and Vincent hadn’t known each other longer than they’d been themselves, she wouldn’t have recognized him these last few months. His hair was growing in from when he’d buzzed it in February or March or something, and he looked halfway between himself again and something different. None of them had given him an option about staying in touch, but he’d still managed to go silent for weeks on end. And no one understood how he’d managed to graduate.

More than anything, it still overwhelmed her how lucky they all were that he was here. He’d been torn apart and stitched back together in ways that no one completely understood yet, but he was still standing. He was her best friend, and she had absolutely no idea what she would’ve done with her love for him if he’d stopped being there.

“What would Florence say?” he smirked.

“You think you compete with Florence?” January quipped back, “that’s cute. Now, get out of my head. Have you been writing?”

He nodded and motioned vaguely in the direction of his notebook. January picked it up and started flipping through it. The first page had a half hearted warning to “stay out or else” that had become obsolete years before when Vincent’s need for feedback had defeated his need for privacy in a hard-won battle. After that it was forty pages, give or take, of gay repression from middle school, and then maybe fifty of half hearted lyrics that she’d already seen before, and then… a bunch of prose.

"These aren't lyrics."

"Okay, notebook police," he snapped, getting up to take the notebook back from her. On his way back to his spot, he faltered just a little bit.

"Have you eaten today?" As soon as she asked, she knew that was it.

He rolled his eyes, a no. “I don’t… have anything on me.”

“My parents do,” she replied, “in the cooler in the basement.”

He disappeared down the basement steps and January went back to reading from the notebook. She felt bad, she knew he hated her basement, but she didn’t deal with blood.

The prose was great, even if parts of it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. A lot of it was about walking late at night, about changing, about missing the luxury of not fully paying attention. Suddenly, she got the feeling that maybe this was more information about that night than he’d wanted her to know.

“Do you have anything I can m…ix with this?” Vincent called, his voice coming from the kitchen.

“I don’t know, look,” she replied, “I think we have an iced tea lemonade left, make your weird cocktail.” The fridge opened and then closed again, followed by the little pop of a cap coming off, and then a plastic bag being punctured, and then Vincent swearing. January rolled her eyes and groaned. Her parents had made a point of doing their best to help Vincent adjust, but even they wouldn’t be happy to come home to a murder scene in their kitchen. “Alright in there?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “I’m good.” He came in a few seconds later, holding a glass bottle. The label on the outside still said iced tea lemonade, but the liquid inside was now a deep opaque red.

SECOND GRADE “Hey! Why don’t you talk?”

January Kane was barely eight years old and already sick and tired of hearing stupid questions. When people asked them to her (“why don’t you look like your mom? are you adopted?”) it wasn’t as big of a deal because she’d been given the answers (“I’m not adopted, I’m biracial.”). However, she had less than zero tolerance for hearing them directed at her friends.

She walked up to the girl with blonde pigtails hovering over Vin like a stormcloud under the mistaken impression that it had any right to talk to January’s friends like that, especially about something they couldn’t control.

“It's called a speech impediment, stupid. Would you wanna talk if people made fun of you for it?”

That was the explanation her mom had given her, more or less. So what if maybe, in her anger, she’d taken a little bit of creative license.

As the girl ran away crying, January vaguely remembered a lesson her dad had given her: “don’t get into fights with girls.”

She sat down next to Vin on the bench and waited for the inevitable sound of an adult screeching her name. check the next issue for part two!

THE HUMAN SYSTEM SHORT STORY BY A.D PAYNE

It’s been thirteen years since we’ve made a mistake. No — since I’ve made a mistake. I wonder what it’ll feel like when I do. Human, I hope. Tomorrow, I’ll know.

And that’ll be the best feeling, after this curse of information. Even if it kills me. Especially if it does.

Either way, I can’t stand to be in the System any longer. There’s constant noise, and there’s nothing but a gray plane as far as I’ve seen, filled with shadows of people so thin I have to squint to see them.

See, they told me not to mess with things I didn’t know. They told me. But my sorry arse just decided for itself that they were just scared — that they didn’t have ambition.

The latter still holds true, but it’s also keeping them alive, and human.

Worthless to the System is what that means. I think. Hell, what do I know.

Well, a lot — too much, that’s for sure.

Maybe thinking I knew better had been the human side of me. To make mistakes. Does it even matter, now? It won’t matter tomorrow. And the voices that disagree wouldn’t care much, either. But I do.

Will they leave me behind for that? Can they hear me right now? I know my sister — Evie, that was her name — would’ve said no. I’m not sure how I’m that certain of it, but I am. And I’m also certain that if she said no to something, I would’ve said yes. Things used to make sense like that, once. I wish they did again.

Evie’s name gets a shadow’s attention. It’s coming closer. No. I won’t tell them about her.

Think of something else. Anything else.

I’d been thinking of something, come on. Making sense. Right. Not much better, but it wasn’t her.

Alright. Nothing makes sense in the System, because it all makes too much sense. With a thousand personalities in one mind, mixed, then spread like jam, there’s too much memory. It’s all too logical. To think: I’m human on the outside, but the outside doesn’t matter anymore. The System convinced me of that a long time ago.

Because they have soldiers for the physical things. And machines, soon.

Machines to control machines that’ll blow up even more of the world. Hell, with the System, we’re practically a machine in itself. I’m practically a machine.

The thought is enough to send the shadow back away into squinting visibility. Good. I need to be careful. I don’t want to be careful.

Mistakes.

That is, unless you count all of this as one big, humanly stupid mistake.

Then yes, we’ve made a mistake. We’ve kept making that mistake, over and over.

The System’s reminding me that’s not human, either.

I still feel human. I’m not sure what that even entails, but I know I do. Even with the mind and memories of a thousand people in me — the smartest and most stubborn people our whole cursed society had to offer — I know I’m still an individual. There’s at least a group of us who haven’t lost ourselves. And it’s growing smaller every day. Might even die off completely as soon as tomorrow comes.

I think. I can never identify who’s new and who’s the person I heard a millisecond ago, in the System. Given we don’t have bodies or voices there, I never know. And I have no idea how I haven’t been caught yet. Shadows like that one happen often enough, usually when I mention Evie. It scares me out of the thoughts every time. Even when I don’t remember who she is — I know I don’t want her caught. Even if she’s always in my mind, disagreeing.

Human of me.

I haven’t been caught yet. Maybe that human luck is still with me, after all.

Right? It’s human to rebel against what we are. We did that with the System.

And the result was… partly human? I’m not sure anymore. Maybe we screwed up so badly that everyone is secretly rebelling, and there’s no one to see it. That might’ve been a fine joke at some point. But I wouldn’t know.

Somehow, the System took whatever sense of humour I’d ever had. I wondered if mine was ever decent, at any point.

Well, the human part of me — the one that still acts this way — shakes its head at this. Again, it feels like Evie. Useless talk. And if I truly still have some individuality, it is stupidly dangerous.

I keep thinking about it anyway. Keep trying to fool myself. Tell myself I just need to hold out till tomorrow. And if that isn’t human, I don’t know what is.

VOICES POEM BY ANNE

@nepeinthe

humanity—skeleton pyramids of limbs and loss and seasons blurring—to wake up a weapon, a voice, a throbbing investment into something greater than yourself—they will forget you if you do not try to speak loud enough to be heard ‘round the world—they will lose you in the madness of a trend, an innovation, a moment of raging bloodshed—recognize that you cannot blame them for their forgetfulness— recognize that left unspent, you, too—you will forget your own self if you do not speak

LIGHT YEARS AWAY POEM BY BEATRICE ALBA, BASED UPON WORKS FROM THE GALLERY “RUTH ASAWA: LIFE’S WORK”

@dragonfliies You took the late train back to your apartment and a scalding cup of tea. You’d felt their presence even from your cluttered office desk, through miles of air and busy wavelengths ancient, arcane attendants to a world now devoid of blackened campfire smoke and chapped lips, tiring of telling the same stories year after year. Your ancestors’ eyes knew this frequency just as their teeth did, buzzing with the wire and the flesh until it all turned to racing cars and neon lights.

You find a smile in their bodies as they find your pulse small bit of hope amid contrails and towering skyscrapers.

Their bodies replace the trains that flash through dark tunnels, rogue cameras through the night.

They do not derail the cars from their tracks, knowing you will come to them of your own accord, your mind filling with slowly drifting clouds that swim under the sea with the fishes and the sharks.

Their muscles loop upon themselves under the sky of faintly pinked scars that cannot fade, their laughter like young hands against chain-link fences that protect them from a world outside a schoolyard, filled with chalk dust and knees skinned raw young hands against chain-link fences that protect the world from young bodies with miles of adrenaline coursing through their veins.

THE FIRST WALK POEM BY CARMEN ARRIBAS

@carumens the road curves winds breaks opens up like the mouth of a lonely wolf and M. ravages the gravel path sinks his chubby fingers on the fat dandelions and blows blows blows —and when it doesn’t work— bites and spits and swallows wishes — wishes dead on the womb of possibility— and i am glad because there’s a selfishness that drives me, that has driven every single drop of blood that has ever dared to rage inside my mouth, every single metallic clank that has rattled my teeth when they have closed on nothing. and so M. grabs wishes and youthful daisies and fleeting poppies and sturdy pines and throws them in my way over my head inside my eyes. we try to cross the river —river thin as blue evasive veins— and my legs are a bridge he does not trust to cross, so he dives his muddy hand inside and splashes me with the remnants of a lifetime. it soaked my heart it soaked my whole life!

M. exclaims as he tries to pick the river off his fingers,

his face still stained with the blood of flowers. so it did is all i can answer, and then because the selfishness is always there, will you give me some?

ARE WE NOT ICARUS? POEM BY MOLLY

@incipientdream icarus soared flying, swooping into the sunlit air. how he shouted with glee as his wings broke in apollo’s shadow. he flew too close to the sun as humans tend to do but he knew the consequences. there would be no heavens only the hum of free-fall and scorching wax. he was humanity epitomised warm hands, burning skin laughing as he fell to the water. drowning, he was drowning and finally free. he was nothing but human full of lost hopes and dreams sinking ever deeper. and there he fell a beautiful tragedy.

FEARFUL POEM BY CINDY TRAN ABOUT ABOUT THE FEAR THAT ACTIVATES IN ALL OF US IN DIFFICULT SITUATIONS, AND HOW EVEN THOUGH WE MIGHT REACT TO SITUATIONS LIKE THESE IN VERY DIFFERENT WAYS, THE INNATE HUMAN EXPERIENCE IS ULTIMATELY THE COMMONALITY THAT CONNECTS US ALL.

@cindytranwrites it starts with the trembling of my fingers then it spreads to my chest, where my heart beats its erratic rhythm stuttering stopping starting again my head spins and a wave of vertigo washes over me pulling me under there is no air here i realize with a start any panic and the claws around my chest will tighten so i try not to think but in trying not to think i turn my thoughts into a terrible thunderous treatise i rest my head on my arm i wait for the storm to pass i slow my breathing to match the calm of the storm the waves washing over me my eyes slip closed and i wake up drowning

CONFESSION POEM BY RILEY M. COURTNEY

@unopenedjournal The skin I wear is not my own And my eyes cannot see Until my heart stops beating.

There is a body sitting next to me With resemblance to my mirror, But when we scream, It is only mine to go unnoticed.

FRAGMENTS PROSE BY KATIE

@pechaes it happens all at once. you’re thirteen again, sitting in the dark across from the only full-length mirror in your room while the rest of the world is asleep. you’ve stared at yourself for so long you’ve forgotten that it’s your reflection that you’re looking at, and when you scratch at your chest, it almost startles you that the girl in the mirror scratches, too. it’s still difficult for you to explain why it feels like the body doesn’t fit properly. it’s still difficult for you to grasp the idea that you have a body, too. gosh, you’re thirteen again, and you’re still scared of everything. the girl in the mirror looks like you, but something is wrong about it; just the slightest bit off. you wonder if this is what your reflection sees from the other side of the mirror. you don’t know what to do with the knowledge that you’ve been on the wrong side this whole time. you haven’t looked in the mirror since you were fifteen, it scares you to think of what’s been trapped there while you’ve been away. so you pull back the sides of the mirror and go looking for yourself, but she’s long gone. you do not get to say goodbye. you do not get to say thank you. you have to learn how to mourn the people you weren’t ready to lose. you’re thirteen again, staring yourself into silence and you vowed you’d never come back. you promised your wrong reflection that you’d never hide her again. but you’ve also never been surrounded by this many mirrors for so long. you don’t know what to do with the other parts of you that seem to be seeping out of them every time you go to wash your hands. my god, all these mirrors and you’ve still never seen yourself.

TO THIS GENERATION...

PROSE BY ISHANI

@ccardans To this generation I must ask, Why it’s easier to issue a death threat than a love letter, Why our words are being used as bullets firing over and over and over again Why ignorance and intolerance is a built-in feature, And why these questions are questions that haven't been asked.

I would like to know the root of the problems spanning time, To understand the hate & fear reflected today, To know the grief and terror that we wear like a second skin.

I'd like to know, plain and clear, Why we are given seminars & speeches on gun violence, Rather than the educational material that should be on our minds instead.

BREATHE POEM BY MAIRA

@miroomoo and @reviserevolution Breathe.

At some point being human does not define you; your cuts and bruises, your many fractures and emotional balance.

Breathe.

It's all back in the time space when everything was unknown and you'd go out thinking you were fine but get caught up in the time clock, forgetting the things that mattered most to you.

Breathe.

It's not about the battered up clothes you once stole out of your sister's closet or the times where you felt as if nothing was going to stop you from becoming invincible.

Breathe.

And as you kept evolving into an ever changing person, you began to see how different your perspectives changed throughout the years.

Breathe.

You became elite, stupendous, truly remarkable when you realized that those facts.

And then you checked back on your time, were you here a minute ago, yesterday, another timezone?

Breathe.

Now you breathe words of fire and wisdom. Aches of long gone tomorrows and yet to come futures. Sometimes you wake up in your sleep and end up calling for long gone help. Where does it end?

Breathe.

They said, “Until we find another plane to house its inhabitants”, or “When the sun sets in the west and the night shadows are cast upon the inhuman natures."

Breathe.

But when the sunlight beams through the windows, you don’t speculate a single thing. Is that where it ends?

Breathe.

Where are your thoughts, the remnants of your brain, the one part of your body where fatigue has hit the most?

Breathe.

The silence it carries is phenomenal, more than just being. Full fledged, a matter of waste or recycled material, or something even more than ordinary.

These are the woes of countless humans' minds. You can see the arrows embedded deep in their skin, a sign of rivalry and courage. Befallen lies and too little of a breath.

When the hours flee, you realize your potential and your worth, your boundaries and your accomplishments. But nothing makes sense.

So someday when you're far off into the mountains, you ask yourself, “Did you breathe today, or did that last bit of breath disappear into thin air?”

feature section

EULOGIES FOR THE AUTOPSY OF EARTHFLOW series of poems by celeste autry tw: suicidal ideation, self harm, alcoholism, death, abuse

EPIGRAPH "will you rot with me, my love?" she asks. the sun shines brightly and she can hear the trampling of brush and leaves as the animals awaken. the bees are buzzing and the silence is just as tranquil as it is deafening but she doesn't mind. the stench of iron is strong in the air despite the light teasing of the wind but it matters not when her lover's hand is in her own. the girl beside her flashes a wicked grin, blood bubbling at the corner of her mouth before it melts away into the grass. her eyes begin to shut now, against her will, and her body grows heavy but she forces herself to remain conscious as the breeze blows her lover's final words towards her ears. "yes," she says breathlessly. she finds solace in the grip of death's gnarled fingers and the world exhales.

A SATIRE OF A SATIRE IS TIRING o! transmogrify / petulant face thief / with every blood stain against / stark white contrast / you dissolve into something so unlike yourself / and the bees ponder / the nature of such an arrangement / the ground clamors for a sense / of understanding / o! sweet girl of mine / beaten down / into a form so unlike your own / what is a girl meant to do / when the world / the fucking world / is in shambles and the wreckage / contains none other than the love she could not harbor / for herself / o! cardinal ophelia / overcome with the hum of the earth / and the swell of music / of fairy gardens / of tempestuous seas / o! beloved mistress / what has happened to thee / the wailing of misplaced bodies / the warmth of flesh on flesh / the satirical play on vore / o! / let the brawn that adorns me / consume me whole / o! / let me lose myself in / the debris of carnage and madness / o! / let me find contentment / in the warmth their face provides / o! / master of borrowed time / may the gods shine down upon thee / bastard child / forsaken child / as she dissolves into madness / a home content with the behemoth and her / face stealing ways / o! / let the mania consume her whole / and watch as she / dies / so unlike herself / but content at last /

LOVER’S SPIT AND REGURGITATED FLESH ain't it funny the way brittle bones snap and break until dust is all that remains? it's an endless dance of the litany of sacred hearts, gnarled fingers, bruised thighs, and drunken, filthy musings. but is that not simple in itself? how sacred can a heart be to a person who has regifted their flesh and blood to their people, their family, society, the soggy earth they tread on? how simple are gnarled fingers wrapping around the neck of mortality and squeezing with the strength of a thousand hags? how can bruised thighs be a juxtaposition of love and war when these two mundane occurrences are synonymous? how can musings be anything more than a drunkard's vow of sobriety when the connection of pen meeting temple becomes damaged?

I CAME, I SAW, I LOVED i. veni i saw the broken, damaged girl with bones like glass and a heart that undead poets would write eulogies about and though every fiber of my being begged me to run, i ran arms wide into her love. she was a fragile thing, similar to a bird with a broken wing that spent eons tip toeing haphazardly over crumbling egg shells. she was a bastard, that is to say she was impure, that is to say she committed suicide by flinging herself from the gates of paradise until she landed, crumbled, in a heap. what i mean is, she was death incarnate. her kisses stung like pomegranate juice upon an open wound, you know what i mean, right? that burn when lemon juice cascades over war torn lips? the kind of pain that leaves you aching, leaves you breathless and in her eyes, i saw what death feels like. her teeth knocked against honey flesh and in their wake, left gashes and bruises and the mark of her name upon my ribs. what i mean is, she left gashes and bruises upon flesh until i knew not of what i had been. ii. vidi this is what ichor tastes like. remnants of sweet, sapphic loving mixed with the harshness of gunpowder and violence. a suicidal type of bond. she was death personified and i have known death for as long as i have known her. she is a pomegranate seed type of love. she travels the world and i beg her to return. by the world, i mean hell. she flung herself from the gates of paradise until mangled flesh met scorched ground and when she locked eyes with the woman below, she smiled that sink-your-fang-into kind of smirk, all teeth, and the world around her exhaled. how can something so divine be so unholy? iii. amavi to love implies weakness. she left me hollow with thorned rose bushes in my lungs until every breath that wracked through my body, left the sting of copper - so akin to pomegranate juice - an eternal reminder.

CHAMPAGNE VOMIT he's intoxicated with the sting of reality and earth shattering heartache (the type to grow vines pricked with thorns on his lungs) and in between the silliness of the chalice the devil presents to him, he begs for a song, a lullaby, a lamenting sorrow of the boy who drank himself dry. through the tears and dizzying confusion, it's no longer a choice he struggles to make, no longer difficult for him to decide whether to drive faster or die quicker. it's so pleasurable, dying is, some sickeningly sweet satisfaction in the prospect of death. see, for him destiny depends on the taste of fate. it's something he no longer attempts to escape and he chooses, instead, to let the sweetest wine drip slowly over a crooked smile and move with careful calculation behind his teeth and pool at the back of his throat. romanticize death with me, right here, right now, and form me a casket, let the blood spill from your finger tips and seep into the ground in which you carve out a graveyard.

it's enough to make the angels weep - watch as the scared little boy cowers at the sight of his reflection, watch as the little boy rips into his flesh, pulls his cracked rib cage from the gnarled flesh clinging to bone and let him bury his heart in the quicksand of fabrication, of powder, of a eulogy worth presenting to the pastor's good will. it was never a fight, never a choice between the mind and body for how could this shell of a man fight when he'd never had the will to fight at all? our brains are fragile, tragic things. a closet of memories set to fling the clothes from the hooks at a moment's weakness, memories best kept secret, kept hidden and piled into a corner, buried beneath the clothes in boxes gathering cobwebs and dust as the years pass by. this is a room of anguish and despair, of forlorn woes, of emotions and desires where melted dreams and aspirations blend together in a mess of distant cries and champagne vomit. death's arms are what he envisions cocooning him in conflicting warmth and with a sigh, he's swept into a vapour of misery his mortal body cannot withstand.

FLESH AND BONE REGIFTS FLESH AND BONE does your conscience ever taunt you from the pits it's buried deep in, threatening to open the floodgates of darkness, shaking brittle bones, pushing thick slurring lines down your throat ? i feel as if there's a layer of filth caking my tattered, bruised flesh and muddy nails, scraping skin, bloodied knuckles, chapped lips and maybe that's why i can't be pure like the paramount gods above. and i don't want this body, i demand absolution, stand in front of the gates of hell, body torn, arms mutilated, maggots ringling themselves through hollow eyes, smile permanently scarred across lips until i'm drowning and choking on the smell of smoke and fire and death and rotting nothingness that threatens to consume me and i smile, offer my body for a chance at absolution, grin in the face of the devil, present my flesh proudly for him to use, to abuse, to mutilate and maim. my body has grown used to my touch, grown too used to the tools of destruction i wield against myself. there's sharp glass in my throat now, lodged there from the pieces of fragments of myself i've attempted to puke away. on the glass is me, pieces of skin, blood dripping from the ragged edges, pieces of me i broke trying to fix myself. and there's me, standing over myself, spin curved over the edge of the toilet, hands grasping at my neck, choking me and pushing into my flesh until flesh meets bone, bone meets me, bone meets soul and i'm digging the fragmented pieces of rock and stone from the cemetery with my name on it. there is crimson paint cascading over tanned cheeks, bruises etched into my esophagus that line my pounding sternum.

crying, eyelids crusted over and all i can make out is red-hot blood and my world is tinged in rose colored tint. my hands are wrapped around my throat squeezing until all i can choke out is a plea. "please, just go" i say. i'll miss the warmth flooding my throat, spilling over my tongue, seeping through my skin. hopefully i can clean it off my nails. i know you'll keep my teeth, sack rotting flesh off of the dying corpse, keep it as memorabilia so you'll always remember what you did. just please, let your smile be the last thing that carves my vision. before you take my oxygen for yourself, let your fist leave a bruise clenched around my pulse. at least the mark you leave will be a reminder.

EARTHFLOW i. as latex clad fists ripped me from scorn's maw, i became painstakingly aware of myself. it's emblazoned, i surmise, in my grin, the sharp upturn of the lips, lamenting sorrow and affliction that convene at the back of my throat. the "it" that's ablaze in me, is self destructive. it's in my nature. ii. catacombs have burrowed underneath my flesh and with each attempt at removal, they dive even deeper. there's something beautiful in the prospect of dying, in the idea of ripping flesh from bone, of taking pieces of happier, brighter people and stitching them unto me until i'm a sick, mangled entity akin to frankenstein. iii. domestic affection has crumbled like ruins under the people of athens and in its place is me. i'm something like a phoenix myself, tragedy and despair have placed me at the bottom of the heap until i'm a conventional paradox of romanticism and nature, of ambition and fallibility, of lost innocence. iv. the sunshine likes the darkness exude, has her flames lick eagerly against charred flesh. the moon, well she likes my bright eyes, finds unconventional beauty in the cracks in the ground. to them, maybe i'm an enigma, maybe i'm an alluring eccentricity, maybe they know that beauty, whenever paired with something else, is always superficial.

v. i go to seek a great perhaps. i've searched for it my entire life and have never come close to discovering the truth. my body is a road map and it has lines and grooves etched into the fabric of its being, each blemish on brown skin is the one i'll hope leads me home. the start, the labyrinth, the end, purpose. vi. i plunge, half worn, into stormy waters and erupt into violent mania. sharks surround me, each wave that crashes against fragile bones is a swarm by shoals of ravenous mockery. each taste of salt water is a thrashing on the tongue, a whip against flesh until every fibre of my being screams "flee" vii. should karma catch up to me, know that i ran from my demons and eagerly into death's cold hands. i let her set her teeth upon me, allowed my bones to snap and rot shipwrecked. in manic glee i applauded as tempestuous waves overwhelmed my skin. viii. she finds solace in the grip of death's gnarled fingers and the world, exhales.

OGMA INTERVIEW INTERVIEWING LEAH PATTEM BY CARMEN ARRIBAS

@carumens Leah Pattem was born in Newcastle, UK, but moved to Madrid, Spain, about 7 years ago. She started @madridnofrills 4 years ago as a small personal project to discover and showcase the small bars and businesses in Madrid, and now her blog, where she also talks about inequalities and condemns injustice, is a reference for many.

Before we start the interview, I would like you to introduce yourself a bit to our readers—who you are, what you do, what makes you happy‌ Anything that you think is relevant for our readers to know who you are as a human.

Well, tough question. I’m not a huge fan of talking about myself, which is why my blog is about Madrid, not me, but I’ll give it a go. I’m a journalist, but I’m also a teacher. And basically I write about marginalized communities, which for me is a very important thing, because I feel like I am from a marginalized community and it’s just really nice to be able to help and raise awareness. So I seek out stories where there’s a positive ending to something that’s quite difficult. What makes me happy? Honestly just walking around the streets, looking and observing things and sharing these things with people. Things that make sad? Well, I suppose it’s everything about the context of Madrid. When I arrived seven years ago everything was fabulous, but the more you get to know a place the more you realize the darkness of the world. So I can walk around the streets and see things I love, but also things I hate, which are usually things like inequalities and fascism.

According to Wikipedia, humans are highly intelligent primates that have become the dominant species on Earth. For you, what does it mean to be human? And humanity, are we just a group of humans or are we something else?

I think it means various things. Fundamentally it means ‘community’, and also ‘global community’, but I also have to admit that we are a community that is a plague on the Earth. I don’t think we’re helpful for this planet, and we’re doing our very best to destroy it. But even though we’re destroying the planet that we know, at the end of it the world will keep spinning and we will have to deal with the consequences of what we’re doing, but the planet will win. So yeah, humanity is both good and bad.

In his book No Longer Human, Dazai Osamu writes, at one point, “Disqualified as a human being. I had now ceased utterly to be a human being.” Do you think there has been a time in your life in which you have been treated as something other than human, to the point where you have felt left out of the general concept of ‘humanity’ or that it has made you overthink about who you are?

Well, tough question. I’m not a huge fan of talking about myself, which is why my blog is about Madrid, not me, but I’ll give it a go. I’m a journalist, but I’m also a teacher. And basically I write about marginalized communities, which for me is a very important thing, because I feel like I am from a marginalized community and it’s just really nice to be able to help and raise awareness. So I seek out stories where there’s a positive ending to something that’s quite difficult. What makes me happy? Honestly just walking around the streets, looking and observing things and sharing these things with people. Things that make sad? Well, I suppose it’s everything about the context of Madrid. When I arrived seven years ago everything was fabulous, but the more you get to know a place the more you realize the darkness of the world. So I can walk around the streets and see things I love, but also things I hate, which are usually things like inequalities and fascism.

According to Wikipedia, humans are highly intelligent primates that have become the dominant species on Earth. For you, what does it mean to be human? And humanity, are we just a group of humans or are we something else?

I think it means various things. Fundamentally it means ‘community’, and also ‘global community’, but I also have to admit that we are a community that is a plague on the Earth. I don’t think we’re helpful for this planet, and we’re doing our very best to destroy it. But even though we’re destroying the planet that we know, at the end of it the world will keep spinning and we will have to deal with the consequences of what we’re doing, but the planet will win. So yeah, humanity is both good and bad.

In his book No Longer Human, Dazai Osamu writes, at one point, “Disqualified as a human being. I had now ceased utterly to be a human being.” Do you think there has been a time in your life in which you have been treated as something other than human, to the point where you have felt left out of the general concept of ‘humanity’ or that it has made you overthink about who you are?

Yeah, I’m not sure what the reasons were but it would be work-related. I was a professional photographer for a while and I felt invisible. I didn’t like it. I would be shooting really big events, like weddings or conferences, and in these types of events you’re supposed to be a bit invisible so you can catch these candid shots, but then that’s one thing and being dragged around told what to do… I am a very creative person and that sort of removed the creativity, but I also think it had something to do with the fact that there are not many photographers that are women, and where I was living at the time there aren't many people of color, so I did feel like it was possible that because of my physical appearance I was treated more as a servant rather than a human. I also used to work in restaurants, and people treat you like you’re a robot, they throw money at you, and I’m not sure I could say it was because of my physical appearance, being a woman, my race, I don’t know, maybe it’s about the sort of jobs that are considered low-skill. The working class are quite invisible people.

What are some challenges you face in your daily life, and how have those challenges affected your views of the world and of yourself?

It comes down to the time we are living in. I graduated and then there was a financial crisis, and it’s taking a long time to recover from that because my training was in climate science, and that wasn’t something that was big at the time, it was difficult to get into, so when there was a financial crisis it wasn’t very easy to jump into another profession, and now I’ve spent like ten years trying to think outside the box. I’ve experimented a lot and done lots of things. And I still wouldn’t say I am just one thing—I do four or five different things to make money. I have what I call a patchwork career.

Maybe if there hadn’t been a financial crisis I would be working in environmental sciences, so that’s the big thing that has changed me —the economy. I have to fight for money on a daily basis and I think that because I’m freelance I’m always thinking about how to make money, but also because I’m a very socially conscious person I don’t want to make things that undermine other people, and so I’m trying to make money as a freelancer in the most anti-capitalist way I can. So yeah, my daily challenges are related to money.If I could change how my life has developed, though, I wouldn’t change anything. I have absolutely no regrets, and I think I’ve come out really well.

I got to know you and your work because of your Instagram account @madridnofrills, in which you explore and showcase neighborhoods, businesses and bars that are rooted in the heart of Madrid, and which are usually ignored when it comes to advertising the city to the outside world. First, why do you think this happens? These small businesses and traditional neighborhoods are a mirror of the true history and essence of Madrid. Secondly, what motivated you in the first place to start @madridnofrills, and have those motivations changed through time?

It's very simple: capitalism. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. If these small businesses had the budget, they would be advertising in Time Out magazine, but it’s partly that these bars and small businesses they are not part of this international vibe and culture that blogs like Madrid Secreto or Time Out magazine promote. Unfortunately because money wins, it’s very reflective of what people believe the culture is, so you’ve got to step back from the Internet and get on your feet and walk around to really see the true Madrid, and I don’t think it’s fair that this businesses have to rely on footfall alone. You've got all of these other restaurants who bring people from all over the city and even the country to have a meal that is quite average in a restaurant in Malasaña. It’s not fair, and the information is not out there. I’ve put so many bars and restaurants on Google Maps, at least a hundred, they didn’t have a location before, and I think that anyone would agree that the best places to eat or have drinks are the local bars, but these bars don’t have the resources for advertisement. Maybe some people don’t see local bars the same way that I see them, because I see them as beautiful places with unique design and unusual features, which are representative not only of Spain, but community and Mediterranean life in general.

In your line of work, you are constantly interacting with people from very different backgrounds. How has that changed you as a person?

How do you think you have changed other people?

I’ve always been drawn to different people because I’m of mixed background —my dad is from South India with a relatively poor background, and my mom is from a very working class background, and they worked very hard to give me what we have. That’s why I’m interested in people with different lives. I love talking with old people and people from different backgrounds, and I feel like it hasn’t changed me that much, because I’ve always been interested, but in terms of how I’ve changed other people. I think the accessibility I give to people’s stories. It requires a lot of building trust. People who follow me sometimes are surprised because I tell stories about people they know, and no one ever imagines how someone must have suffered or what they must have lived.

Lastly, with your work you have already done loads for the people of Madrid, but what is the one thing you would like to accomplish or change as an individual? Is there some way in which you would like to change as a human, and if so, how do work towards that goal?

On the really large scale I would like to change the system, but on a sort of smaller scale… well, in Spain, tourism is a nightmare. I don’t understand how 12% of this country's GDP relies on tourism. That’s incredibly toxic, really bad for the country, and the pandemic means that GDP has disappeared overnight and as a result British people are being brought over to Spain despite the risk because of the need for this economic injection of money. It will be hard to change but that’s what I’m working towards. In terms of local issues in Madrid, tourism is probably one of the bigger ones.

That would be the big thing I would want to change because it affects everything else. I think Spain is one of the countries in Europe that has the potential to be self-sufficient, it has such good land and climate. Agriculture could be an incredible industry, but it isn’t because of political reasons. This country is actually surprisingly good, and it doesn’t realize it. There’s something about Spain that feels insecure about its actual potential, and that’s why tourism is so important, because it feels like it needs to rely in other countries, but it could easily survive on its own and other countries would reach out. It’s a complex, an ingrained cultural reason as to why Spain feels like it needs to rely on other countries. It’s political and economic, it’s Brussels telling Spain that it needs to stay down. This country is so much more than what it thinks it is. I hope we’re alive to see a change.

SPACE, RACE & ROSWELL NEW MEXICO'S AWFUL ALLERGY ESSAY BY PARKER WRIGHT

@gardenstparker Roswell New Mexico is a CW show that recently finished airing its second season (that I’m about to spoil in its entirety, so read this with caution). The show follows Liz Ortecho as she returns to her hometown of Roswell, New Mexico, and rekindles her high school romance with Max Evans. Liz’s parents are undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Max and his siblings are aliens from space. The show attempts to draw a parallel between the Ortecho family, actual people of color, being targeted by actual white supremacists and the aliens, a sci-fi allegory for people of color, being targeted by sci-fi allegory white supremacists. However, placing these two situations side-by-side in the narrative results in an inappropriate, useless, and frankly disrespectful attempt at a discussion of race because of the aliens’ continued access to and use of white privilege and the repeated villainization of characters of color.

As much as the story would like us to believe otherwise, the three white aliens do not experience racism or anything comparable in their day to day lives. In an exchange that comes off as shockingly thoughtless even by CW standards, Max explains to Liz that he’s stayed in Roswell because the town treats him well, as if that’s not glaringly obvious just from looking at him.

The show once again attempts to seem self-aware by drawing attention to this problem without doing anything substantial about it during a conversation between Max and Liz in season 2 about how Liz thinks that if she impresses the world enough by discovering something revolutionary in her experiments with alien cells, racism will be over. Neither “white people realizing they don’t have it as bad as other racial groups” nor “one single Mexican immigrant figuring out some really cool science” are going to fix the centuries of systemic oppression that this country is built on. This exchange makes Liz seem naive and trivializes the actual mechanism of racism.

Max is a cop for most of the series. While he does not report Liz’s father and in fact looks out for him even when Liz is not in town, this is still harmful because it promotes the idea that cops function as individuals when they are on the job. This is the same idea that contributes to the belief that violent cops are just “random bad apples” and not that the system is rotten to the core. And even if it was just a case of good and bad apples, Max is not a good apple. There is a minor character in town named Wyatt Long, who personifies the general spirit of racism directed at Liz and her family. We as an audience don’t like Wyatt, so it’s easy to disregard the fact that Max’s actions towards him are characterized by frequent abuses of power and fully cross the line into police brutality on multiple occasions. Police brutality is never acceptable, ever, no exceptions, and the dynamic between Max and Wyatt seems set up specifically to obscure the fact that in real life, the Wyatt Longs and Max Evanses of the world are more often than not on the same side. The show’s refusal to consider that Max plays into the system that Liz is oppressed by diminishes the show’s ability to talk about race in a meaningful way.

Max and his siblings Michael and Isobel, as three of the central characters, are obviously sympathetic. They have a deep dark secret (that they’re aliens) and an even deeper darker secret underneath which the audience discovers later, but who doesn’t? It’s a teen drama, after all. However, the exact nature of that deeper, darker, secret is worse than just regular teen drama nonsense. Ten years before season 1 takes place, under the impression that Isobel was responsible, Max and Michael covered up the murders of Liz’s sister Rosa and two other girls from town. Then, knowing that Max wouldn’t be able to keep the secret from her, Isobel used her powers to get Liz to leave town before the funeral. To recap, three white teenagers killed a latina teenager, stayed silent for ten years while she was blamed for her own murder, and further tore her family apart by driving her younger sister out of town. This show prides itself on representation, but representation means nothing if characters of color are not treated with empathy and respect. What Roswell shows for Rosa in her death is a cheap imitation that mainly serves to contextualize the aliens’ guilt and how it has shaped them as people. Despite feeling guilty, the aliens’ first priority is always protecting themselves and their secret. On top of that, in contrast to the Ortechos, their right to exist in Roswell is never questioned by the general public because they’re white.

In season 1, we are introduced to Isobel’s husband Noah. When we meet him, Noah is sweet, doting, human, and oddly unbothered by his wife’s weirdly codependent relationship with her brother. Around town, he is well known as a human rights lawyer who fights against deportations and just an all-around stand-up guy. He’s also the only South Asian member of the cast.

That would be fine, if the show had just left it at that. As the season progresses, Noah and Isobel’s marriage becomes strained as Isobel struggles to hide from him that she is an alien. That’s still fine. The problem comes when the main characters begin to suspect that a fourth alien is present in town. This mystery alien is responsible for fourteen murders, the first of which is Rosa Ortecho. The violence done by this alien is the main reason for the persecution Max, Michael, and Isobel face. Close to the end of the season, this evil fourth alien is revealed to be Noah. Not only did he kill Rosa, he utilized Isobel’s body to do it. In one go, this show both made their only South Asian male character a serial killer and abuser in every single way possible AND completely absolved their white leads of any responsibility for an act of racialized violence that they weren’t being held responsible for anyway. Additionally, Noah’s reasoning for being evil is tied to the results of him being of a lower social class on the aliens’ home planet while Max, Michael, and Isobel were well taken care of. Since Noah violated Isobel so severely, the main characters never feel compelled to consider the circumstances that led him there that they may have benefitted from. The show telling the story of a socially oppressed person becoming irredeemably evil as a direct result of said social oppression indicates an attitude directly opposed to the one we need to have if we are going to achieve meaningful change in this world. The foundational belief of activism should be that everyone deserves to have their needs met, while the narrative of the privileged being at risk from the oppressed taking advantage of them attempts to justify the opposite.

The main human threats to the aliens are Jesse and Flint Manes, the father and brother of Michael’s love interest, Alex. Jesse is white while Alex, Flint, and their other two brothers are all Navajo on their mom’s side. Throughout season 1, Jesse refers to the aliens almost exclusively using veiled white nationalist talking points. Flint echoes Jesse almost word-for-word whenever he opens his mouth, even at the end of season 2 when his and Jesse’s plans diverge significantly and they begin working in opposition to one another.

However, Flint can’t truly fill the same role as Jesse in the allegory because the ways in which they move through the world are so fundamentally different. No effort is made to indicate how Flint’s lived experiences as a man of color, which Jesse has not had, could contribute to a difference in worldview even as they share the same end goal. Human vs Alien is not a coherent axis of oppression, even within the world of the show, where Flint has power over Max, Michael, and Isobel.

Flint and Jesse’s beliefs about the aliens being evil are treated as brainwashed and bigoted, yet at the same time, it has been well established that killing people with his powers makes Max feel good. By having a member of the metaphorically oppressed group be an actual violent threat, the show promotes the idea that there is indeed something to be afraid of from marginalized groups. This would not be a problem if the aliens didn’t stand in for anything and were just allowed to be attributes of the sci-fi genre. Instead, the fantasy conflict is tied to the real world conflict in a way that promotes harmful ideas about the latter. Additionally, despite claiming to care a great deal about the threat that aliens pose to humans, Jesse does not mention Rosa’s death even once, despite knowing full well how she actually died. As it turns out, Jesse’s wish to protect humanity doesn’t extend to people whose parents weren’t born here.

Throughout Roswell New Mexico’s 2 seasons, the aliens are supposed to represent an oppressed minority even as their whiteness saves them time and time again. At the same time, various people of color are villainized for acting against them. Even though it is technically led by a Latina actress, this show promotes the centralization and prioritization of whiteness at almost every turn. Liz’s emotional armor that she built to cope with the death of her sister is treated as an obstacle to her romance with a white guy, on equal footing with said white guy covering up said sister’s death.

Characters of color are treated as disposable or paranoid for not falling in line with the white lead’s interests constantly. This is unacceptable for a show that claims to want to do justice for people of color.

OGMA ISSUE II July 2020 Ogma claims no credit for any images used in this magazine unless specified otherwise.

Images are either from Canva or Unsplash. Credit for pictures from other sources is given below.

Cover Image Canva page 9 The Devil And Tom Walker by Charles Dean page 54 photo of interviewee by @madridnofrills page 23 image from pinterest

OGMA AN ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE FOR YOUNG WRITERS

u o y k n a h t ing d a e r r fo