Spring 2024 | MULTIPLICITY

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Seasonal

Elena Laskowski . . . 4

These past three months have been filled with an incredible amount of change, progress, and accomplishment that have fundamentally changed Untold for the better. Our recent achievements and milestones are a testament to the dedication and talent of our contributors, staff, and the Hamline community that supports us.

First and foremost, I am so proud to announce that Untold Magazine secured the Fourth Place Award in the Literary Arts Magazine category at the Associated Collegiate Press’s 2024 Spring National College Media Conference! This national recognition is such an incredible honor; It is a testament to the hard work and commitment of everyone involved in the creation and curation of Untold Magazine.

Our spring issue also came with a surge in contributions from our peers. This influx of creativity and storytelling has enriched our publication and reaffirmed our commitment to providing a platform for excellent student media!

Furthermore, I am delighted to welcome several new hires to our team. These talented individuals bring fresh perspectives, energy, and ideas that will undoubtedly contribute to Untold’s continued growth.

As we celebrate these progressions and milestones, I want to express my gratitude to our readers, contributors, and editorial staff. Your enthusiasm and engagement inspire us to push the boundaries of what is possible and to continue striving for excellence in all that we do.

With that, we are proud to present Multiplicity—an issue that reflects the compounding and conflicting energies we each embody.

Thank you so much for reading,

Alex Sirek Editor in Chief

Untold is a student-run arts and literary magazine at Hamline University, dedicated to tackling the underground and under-discussed.

What is Untold ? Letter from the Editor

IT ALWAYS HAPPENS LIKE THIS

Cathryn Salis . . . 5

silent study, in space

Hodo Mohamed . . . 6

seven heads; seven mountains

Alex Sirek

Bereft

Justice Vue

tran•si•tion, verb.

Aiden Lewald

10

The Perpetual Dance

Asher Gettings

Elegy for Dead Birds

Lydia Meier . . . 12

(content warning: images/depictions of animal remains)

A Discourse on Unpredictable Bodies

Abbie Sundich . . . 14

Coyote, Coyote

Otto Harris . . . 16

Teacher Clothes

Otto Harris . . . 17

Get Lost in a Dream

Safiyo Said . . . 18

Let’s Go to a Concert

Sarah Tadvick

20

The Power of Dance

Asiah Hajicek

Commonality Lost Within Community

Empress Amalita . . .22

Doodles and Studies

Cinnia Chan . . . 23

Drawing inspiration from feature writing, creative nonfiction, zines, collage, photography, and more, our publication is as eclectic as the people whose stories we are privileged to tell.

Current students and alumni can pitch story ideas to our call for submissions that we post at the beginning of each semester. We welcome new voices and will support contributors throughout the editing and publishing process.

Untold pays for all original written, visual, and digital work published with us.

If you have any questions, send us an email at:

untoldmagazine@hamline.edu

Table of Contents Staff List

Alex Sirek Editor in Chief

Max Ridenour Chief of Design

Jinda Lon Web Manager

Ani Lowe Print Editor

Safiyo Said Print Assistant

Website Exclusive: Little Boy Blues

Montana Miller (content warning: depression, themes of suicidality)

Catheryn Jennings Faculty Advisor

Seasonal

September

Elena Laskowski

The sweet scent of summer does its best to linger in the ridges of the bark on the maple and in the pores of the coals on the grill, but like the drifting sun, it will not stay and thank god for that. Like clockwork, though maybe a few ticks slow, something of depth is coming to turn the leaves and crisp the wind as it turns and twists past back gates to brush through the shallow fur of porch-railing cats and set the benches swinging, the chairs rocking, their occupants thinking, slowly: what fields of plenty, what barren harvests might lay in the ground ahead?

October

Wet leaves plastered to gravel. Streetlamps, yellow and dim, give enough glow to make out the alleyway. Someone is smoking out back, and the singe threads the air. A rabbit, two, cross the path before my bike’s wheels, then leap to safety. The patio lights are on, the trees emit crispness, my father is standing by the grill. There’s a wine glass in his hand, full of red, and the kitchen windows are open to the night. Dinner is being placed on the table plate by plate and the last of the visibility outside fades away.

December

It is the winter solstice. There is no snow to be found, no wintry windswept frozen landscape to traverse, or admire, or revel in. Perhaps there is a reason. It is good, of course, not to be stung by the air and not to roll bumpily along the roads in fear of sliding off them. It simply does not feel the way it normally would, or subjectively should. It is still familiar, like November, but it is unfamiliar for this day. I am terrified of sickness. I feel my time is so short and I have already missed more than I wished. We are at our most vulnerable, most in need of comfort and intimacy when our bodies are weak. But the matter of contagion robs that from us, making isolation and loneliness the only choice if you care that your loved ones stay well. If you are a good person; suffer alone. The winter is lonely. Snow does not always stop that, though it does distract with wonder and innocent awe. Its absence leaves a dull throbbing and an emptiness like forgotten hunger. What does the world leave us with? What do we deserve?

February

A cascade of light arrives through clouds, buttery smooth but uncertain. It snows on Valentine’s Day. This one night is a quiet trapping of winter; it holds frost and flakes like a suspended breath and the streetlamps’ circles of yellow are the sun’s little duplicates for awed travelers, ill-prepared with their tennis shoes and bare strips of ankle and neck. They hold hands to cross over where the snow is padded thick and turn their flushed faces to the sky to receive crystalline offerings. In the coming days, the ground floor dries to brown again soon enough.

March

The false spring has been an extended one, but it falls backward into breath-like smoke in the snapping air and a sky slated for icy slices of blue. Coming around the bend is a storm of something like moisture and starting over, or so you hope. Or instead, the dead leaves will resurrect on their own like unburied corpses and decorate bony branches with a fragile, but living, skin. Rustling is inevitable. Time dances forward and everything else is swept along in whatever state it can manage, which is all you can really do in the world when it’s outside your door.

IT ALWAYS HAPPENS LIKE THIS IT ALWAYS HAPPENS LIKE THIS

silent study, in space

i dissected my message in a bottle, left on the moon --hooked by my fishing line, a gift to myself, encased in glass. tweezers helped the message escape from its enclosure. i was left to stare in awe at the weight of paper:

trying to drag me, catalog me, sit me down at my own exhibit, family home videos in the background, suffocated by the nothingness inside a glass bottle, right beside a stiff american flag, as crowds of stars look through my apartment window crush the glass into stardust and sprinkle it into your petri dish of belonging, attempt to label loneliness as an experiment, outrun nostalgia by chasing an illusion, while an abandoned letter is left without its own home, drifting through overturned clothes, overflowing sink without a tether, alone. up to my knees with dread, i know that the melody is turbulent, the notes burrow in, lift, and swing, stumbling through my fears and cupboards, a dance within my dreams.

Hodo Mohamed

warm water, steam, a new bottle emerges, hands yearning to decontaminate-my soul, the skies, my self-- the bottle, planted on my desk.

dust disturbed, shoved in an apartment, a status report amongst overwhelming static: silence echoing in craters-- lists make things easier to comprehend:

1: too many to examine-- i wonder if the moon holds a grudge, i mean, the creation of those craters must have hurt,

2: too many to number, the moon is left with its craters filled with empty-- an empty for all the world to see-- we fill our textbooks and museums with pictures of its previous pain,

3: it cannot say a word in its defense, so i tossed a message its way-- for me, or the moon, i cannot say. alone and shattered, an astronaut poet left grounded casts a bottle downstream-a bait for dreamers-hoping that elsewhere, another wanderer picks up nothing, studies carefully, and makes an irrational decision to ruin empty space and create a tale so fulfilling rumors can be heard from our moon, no fishing line required, so apparent, our eyes and ears can understand a silent message

without having to say a word.

heads; seven mountains

Bereft Justice Vue seven

Alex Sirek

tran•si•tion, verb.

The Perpetual Dance Asher Gettings

I am writing now of grief, and of getting past it, and of how it takes a piece of you forever.

I am writing now of love, and of drowning in it, and of how it takes a piece of you forever.

To my left, beyond pine needles and fallen leaves, steam rises from a building in the dying light.

It soars and dances

To the rhythmic thrum of those hearts who came before.

The music fades.

I ache, bound and broken, for souls lost and found.

It is odd, isn’t it?

How the lost linger like the dying sun on needles of pine.

They are here, with us.

In the living moments.

In the beautiful things.

Thank you for the music.

May we dance to that ancient melody with newfound partners, releasing our pulses to the lilt of the chorus.

May we let our tears fall when called for, and our startled smiles beam the same.

Thank you for the dying light on evergreen needles, for the perpetual dance, for living moments, and for those lost and found.

Aiden Lewald

Elegy for Dead Birds Lydia Meier

... The next morning / this loon, speckled / and iridescent and with a plan / to fly home / to some hidden lake / was dead on the shore. / I tell you this / to break your heart, / by which I mean only / that it break open and never close again / to the rest of the world.

- “Lead,” Mary Oliver

I am eye-level with a dead goldfinch (Spinus tristis). It is the first month of my second year at college and I am talking on the phone in the doorway of a sunken basement classroom, between a two-story east-facing window and white columned stairs. The goldfinch is upside-down on the concrete outside the window, yellow throat facing the sky, and wings and feet drawn into his small frame.

I don’t remember who I was on the phone with, but I remember hanging up. I remember leaning my head against the cold window in reverence, noticing more crumpled bodies in my periphery – a complete skeleton with splayed wings, a corpse covered with black quills, scattered pinion feathers, vertebrae, and skulls. I remember seven dead birds in varying stages of decomposition, inadvertent death by window.

Months later, I looked for the skeletons, but they had all been swept up. In the years since, I’ve seen five more dead birds outside the windows of that building: that October, a chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina) resting its beak on the sidewalk like a prayer, a brown creeper (Certhia americana) a year later, a common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) this past September. Just this February, a robin (Turdus migratorius) and a crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos).

I find myself thinking about all those windows on campus, every so often. The same silver panes that stretch wide to let the light in, also an inadvertent, Icarion death for dozens of birds. Where do I put the grief I hold like a small sacred corpse in my hands?

For a week every March of my childhood, snow-melt coursed through the grassy ditch at the end of our driveway. One year, a duck built her nest beside our fleeting river. We delighted when she laid her eggs and despaired when she left, a few days after the flood dried up. Inside a ring of small maple trees, her abandoned eggs rotted.

In an even earlier memory, a raccoon tore down a robin nest outside my aunt’s house.

I remember the orphaned baby chicks writhing on the landscaping rocks, my cousin asking if we could put bandaids on their bald, delicate bodies. I remember my aunt telling us that they wouldn’t survive. I collect the memories in a jar of fabric scraps for a quilt and fold them into my dreams. I remember turkeys congregating in a snowy cemetery, songbirds chattering from the skeleton hedges, and a funeral for a snow-crusted wood thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) outside the library window in late October of my freshman year. Last spring, a pair of purple finches built a nest behind a porchlight at my parents’ house. When a cowbird left an egg in their nest, they knocked it out, along with two of their own unhatched babies.

We walk over the dead wherever we go, that is how it’s always been. There are small graves everywhere, stumps and park bench inscriptions, missing pet flyers from two seasons ago. Grief forges a path to healing, the barren nest is still a womb, absence creates space for birth, the first birds migrating north are alone until they’re not. You will hold some burial grounds forever, I tell myself, to break my heart open to the world.

I am trying not to be so eager for beginnings that I forget to mourn the endings. I am trying to honor the dead. I pull my memories around me like a bird perching in an empty nest; I sit in the graveyard and listen.

A Discourse on Unpredictable Bodies

Abbie Sundich

Age twelve marked the beginning of a very long and exhausting search for answers. It also marked the beginning of otherness. At twelve, I was at the peak of middle school.

On the day my life changed completely, I was in gym class. The air was warm, humid, and full of tension. The jocks, young and jovial, looked at me with narrowed eyes. I was out of my element in this gym. We transitioned to the weight room. I did some exercises that I now can’t remember.

There’s pain. Then, I can’t walk.

The urgent care physician could find no answers. I was told to lose weight and come in every other year to monitor some mild scoliosis.

I did as such.

The pain continued.

Later, I got an excuse from The Mile, thank god. I lost a friend due to that. She told me that she had health problems too, but didn’t “use them as an excuse.” These days, I give her words little faith.

At age fourteen, I was simply going up the stairs. I have a class, maybe algebra. I felt the pain again, but this . time it was my knee. I honestly can’t remember if it was my right or left, but I felt red, hot agony. I went to urgent care, but there were still no answers. I was on crutches for three days.

At age sixteen, I saw my first rheumatologist and physical medicine specialist. My family is no stranger to health issues. My grandpa has rheumatoid arthritis. My dad has an unknown autoimmune disorder, causing a body full of red circles. My mom has multiple sclerosis. In some twisted sense, I am like the rest of my family. My back was looked at again. I fed blood to the lab. I got an answer, sort-of.

Hypermobility.

My hands and spine could go beyond their normal range of motion, discovered through something called a “Beighton Scale.” The physical medicine doctor told me to do physical therapy and thought maybe I had some “slippage” in my spine, but the x-ray was so close to normal that she couldn’t tell.

My insurance was awful at the time (Go America!), so no physical therapy for me.

College starts. I was eighteen. My back still hurt. My hand hurt. My knees swole. I had to rely on my parents to move me into my dorm. My arms filled with bruises from an invisible attacker: my own body. I’m in the Twin Cities now, nd my insurance is better. I began the search for answers again.

And hypermobility, it turns out, can appear in all sorts of areas aside from the ones measured on the Beighton Scale. I find this out in bed when I suddenly pop my hip out of place, just briefly. I bury my head in my pillow and cry. I then notice how easily I can manipulate my shoulders. My ankles and feet follow. I explain these quirks to doctors, who look at me like I’m insane. I finally got an MRI of both knees and my back; it turned out I was not okay.

The month before my nineteenth birthday, I had my first orthopedic surgery. The operating room is cold, icier than Minnesota. My right knee has a very old fracture from who knows where. There was a piece of bone floating in the joint, causing swelling. I named the bone Fred,because why not?

I have often been asked if I’m an athlete, to which I respond negatively I’ve also been asked if I’ve been in a car crash, and also, no.

And even still, I have yet to find a concrete answer.

The hits continue. The inside of my left knee was swollen to a T; plica pulled tight like a rubber band. My back was NOT FINE but contained four fractures of the bones surrounding my discs and vertebrae. There’s also something wrong with the position of my hip joint. Go figure. I have seen probably every specialist you can imagine.

Bodies are unpredictable. Not always, but they can be. The United States’ medical system is not equipped to handle bodies like mine. Being a female-presenting individual with chronic pain is a challenge in itself. Appointments are rushed, and doctors are overworked. I should not have to bring in my parents to be taken seriously. I should not be passed from doctor to doctor like a hot potato because none of them can figure out what to do with me.

To my fellow people with unpredictable bodies like mine, I hear you. There will always be doctors who don’t understand us, who dislike us because there isn’t an answer. Fear of the unknown is a prevalent concept in this country. I am sorry we have to be so resilient. To those who have been accused of faking, I am also sorry, and I feel your hurt. We deserve better.

Your pain is real; remember that.

Coyote, Coyote

Otto Harris

Coyote Coyote, toothy grin, See your skin cage, stuck within.

What damned mortal hand or eye

Could make your roaring fires die?

In what nearby rooms or beds

Coerced by him to rest your head?

On what grounds built this lovely myth, What the hand, dare snatched your breath?

And what pleads, & what marks, Would warp the beatings of our hearts?

And when thy breath began to cease, What cursed you? & what saved me?

What the curses? what a shame,

In what darkness was thy brain?

What the anger? what wretch’d pain?

Did you feel your patience wane?

When you sneered your teeth in fear

Tasted blood from hands come too near, His smile faltered, your joy now seen Did you, the lamb, break free?

Coyote coyote ripping flesh, Never again this man let rest: With your sharpened teeth and eyes, Create new asymmetry.

Teacher Clothes

Cardigans and dress pants

And smart boots are okay,

But no sneakers

Or ripped jeans, Not even on Friday.

And when someone has tits they will be called “Miss”, And you are expected to keep your hair short–Don’t confuse the kids.

Wear dresses and sensible flats, Or a blouse and a blazer, Or a jacket with snaps.

Don’t talk about dates, Or friends, family, your pay rate.

That’s personal and only for you–Unless, of course, we want to know, too.

And don’t get hysterical

When your classroom has Only standing room available.

You want to teach books

To these kids we say cannot read?

Otto Harris

It’s been years, but we can still claim COVID did a number on their development, Don’t you see?

Standardized, Admin-approved materials only, Get through it and present each student a trophy. Teachers will not decide what they need to teach next.

If we put the Bible back in the curriculum

Would it count as a fictional text?

It’s not our fault, Don’t blame the Admin or the District! We would leave you all alone

If teachers would only just know

How to do their jobs as we wish it!

Inspired by The Tyger by William Blake

Get Lost in a Dream

Safiyo Said

AS I lay my head on the pillow and slowly drift off to sleep, I wonder if I’ll get to dream tonight. I haven’t had much luck lately. Maybe it’s the way I am positioned or the feeling of my bed. I, too, want to know what it feels like to dream— a passion for something, a reason for my existence. I have struggled for what feels like an eternity to figure out a so-called dream. The gap between me and everyone else is growing: I wince every time I am asked about my future. Anxiety rushes through me as I give an answer that does not meet their standards. My unsureness is seen as carelessness. As the days continue, the pressure weighs me down. I’m still struggling to find a comfortable position. Frustration begins to take over.

It is my first day of high school. I’m terrified, but I’m also hopeful. Hopeful for the new chapter in my life. In the blink of an eye, I am walking across the stage to get my diploma. With each step I take, my breathing becomes faster. I can feel the sun shining on my face, the numbness in my feet, the clamminess of my hands. Everything feels real. As I’m shaking my teachers’ hands, I begin to think about all the experiences that led me to this moment. And I think about what is next for me. It feels like I have been following a herd for my entire life, going unnoticed, just doing the bare minimum to stay afloat. As the herd disperses I’m left with no clue where to go next. The unsureness makes me start to believe that I am careless. I can see the disappointment growing on a person’s face as I explain that I am not sure what I will do in college. As I look into their eyes, I can almost picture the disheartening words floating around in their heads.

I ultimately find solitude in my bed: dreams are attainable and I no longer feel the pressure of having things all figured out. I embrace the idea of letting day-to-day experiences mold me. The opinions of others no longer weigh heavy on my chest. A dream for me is simply taking a walk or spending time with my family: things that I tend to overlook and not necessarily appreciate. As time goes on, I continue to live life slowly, finding the beauty of life through small things, and slowly drifting off to sleep knowing that life will continue even if I don’t get to dream tonight.

Let’s Go to a Concert

INITIALLY, there’s the excitement: finding the show, seeing the lineup, buying the ticket, and planning the evening. The first steps of a perfect concert experience. On the day of the show, anticipation takes over and the day can’t go fast enough. Before the doors open, you have to plan your look: how will it fit with the band, how will the rest of the crowd perceive you, and how will you look your best in your unique way? After you plan your look and it’s time to go, the excitement and anticipation hit a high.

Sarah

Tadvick

As you watch the opener, their energy overshadows any lack of status. The music drowns out the remaining conversations, and the band quickly gains the attention of everyone in the room. With the music playing, anticipation turns to appreciation. Immediately you’re engaged in what’s happening in front of you. The room doesn’t exist anymore; there’s only you and the music.

You can’t get to the venue fast enough. Once you arrive you’ll be transported and have little to no thoughts of the world outside. The thrill of walking from the car to the venue takes over (after the anxiety of finding a parking spot wears off). You get to the doors, hear the pre-show music, and feel the excitement coming from the rest of the crowd. Once inside, your next task is finding a spot to become your home for the night. As soon as the show starts, the floor will fill in and it will be harder to get to the front of the crowd, so it’s essential to get there early to stake out this spot.

Then you wait. Looking around you will see others taking in all the sights and sounds of the room around them, all their smiling faces eager for the night ahead. You will see friends catching up and strangers introducing themselves—everyone enjoying being together in a fun and free environment. The main part of the night hasn’t even started yet. The music is about to begin, and the opener takes the stage. It’s time. The crowd falls silent, amplifying the few people still talking, unaware it’s about to start. Slowly the lead singer steps up to the microphone and introduces the band. Then it begins.

“You’re in a room full of people who you don’t know, yet there is this thing connecting you and creating instantaneous community.”

The opener wraps up and the anticipation begins again. But there’s a new excitement in the room that brings people together. You begin to talk to others about how amazing the first band was, and the time between the two sets can’t go fast enough. When the lights go down, signaling the start of the band’s performance, you stop what you’re doing and start cheering with the rest of the crowd for the band. They take the stage surrounded by noise; the room will explode with people yelling and singing and jumping up and down.

The sounds of your favorite songs fill the air, and, right in front of you, you see the intensity and energy the band has on stage. It’s infectious and you can’t help but smile ear to ear as the lights shine in your eyes and the noise fills your head. You don’t even notice your knee hitting the stage in front of you or the sweat forming on your hairline. The only thing that matters at that moment is the music and the people in front of you creating it.

As the set continues, the shock and initial excitement fade into sensory bliss. You’re in a room full of people who you don’t know, yet there is this thing connecting you and creating instantaneous community. There’s no denying the power of the music you’re hearing as the crowd’s screams of approval turn into one. The dreaded call for their last sand brings a bittersweet feeling to the air. The show is almost over, but you know they’re about to give their everything to the final song to leave the crowd wanting more.

The Power of Dance

At this point, you can’t contain yourself anymore, and you jump and scream until your voice is hoarse and sweat pours down your face. The crowd is giving all the energy of the band back to them. The mutual appreciation is obvious. Everyone’s on their feet and there is an electricity that is hard to find in other spaces.

You don’t want the experience to end, but after the song has finished and the band has left the stage, you know the experience is over. There’s a buzz around the room as people gather their things to leave and start to converse once again. Slowly but surely, you make your way to the door, stopping to get merch and maybe talking to the bands along the way. At the end of the night, you and everyone in that room will go back to tackling everyday life, thankful for the few hours of musical escape.

Asiah Hajicek

Commonality Lost Within Community

Empress Amalita

AS Reesa Teesa’s 50-part TikTok series, “Who TF

Did I,” surged to unprecedented virality across diverse entertainment platforms, it poignantly underscored the absence of a unifying thread within our communities. In a flurry of viral phenomena often the divergence of individual perceptions and relatability becomes apparent. Our collective inability to synchronize experiences highlights the fragmented nature of our entertainment preferences, hindering genuine interconnection within communities.

Before the advent of social media applications, our entertainment landscape was defined by a finite array of sources: cinema, television programs, and print media. This shared cultural pool ensured that our collective attention was captivated by common narratives, fostering a sense of unity. Notably, events such as Disney Channel premieres commanded widespread anticipation, akin to the significance attributed to the President’s State of the Union address.

The fervor surrounding High School Musical resonated with the sentiments stirred by Reesa Teesa’s tale: it fostered communal excitement for shared experiences and conversations. No other viral sensation has elicited such collective enthusiasm in my recollection.

The day following the release of High School Musical our school corridors hummed with excitement as we exchanged anecdotes about our favorite tunes and debated who among the Wildcats was the ultimate cool cat. High School Musical transcended mere cinema; it became a unifying force that knit us closer, tighter than ever, with each jazz square adding another stitch to the fabric of our shared experience.

Much like the captivating saga of High School Musical, the 50-part series of Reesa Teesa kept us eagerly engaged, eagerly clicking the “share” button, and perpetually on the edge of our seats.

As audiences have transitioned from passive spectators of entertainment media to active creators the rich tapestry of communal connection gradually unraveled before us. Our media panorama now stretches far beyond the traditional realm, with ordinary individuals assuming the mantle of media personalities. Today, each person curates their distinct niche of interests.

Welcome to the wild world of online fandoms! If you don’t vibe with the popular opinions or, gasp, disagree with the chosen fanbases, brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride through the comment section. It’s like navigating a jungle of shame pits and sassy remarks! Such is the extent of people’s infatuation with their fan clubs that they erect towering stan accounts, ready to pounce on anyone daring to question their sacred idols. Criticize their beloved obsession, and you might as well broadcast your personal information to the entire cyber universe!In this digital era, it seems the sole remaining thread of commonality is the prevalence of animosity toward those who dare to express differing viewpoints.

Reviving commonality within our communities is imperative for enriching our daily experiences.

Reesa Teesa’s narrative serves as a poignant reminder of the joy in storytelling, of the enlightenment gained from diverse perspectives offered by loved ones, and the fortification of bonds forged through shared tales. Without the ties of connection and community, the very fabric of human existence risks unraveling.