Dear readers,

It's my pleasure to welcome you to our second issue of New Constellations Magazine. We're honored to continue showcasing work by young writers, poets, and artists with a selection of truly spectacular fiction, poetry, and art. As the days grow shorter and colder in our neck of the woods, allow these pieces to whisk you away into different seasons, different perspectives—and even new worlds.

Let the dreamy watercolor on our cover—"All is Whale" by Issue 1 contributor Ann Tai—be the vehicle through which you slip into this portal with us. May you find a breath of spring in the poem "Spring Words," also by Ann Tai, and stretch out for warmth in the bright blooms of Lauren Hutt's painting "Reach," in which the melding of hands and flowers is both the memory of grief and the promise of growth. Similarly, the white bell-shaped flowers in Malena Gronda Garrigues' short story "The Knights of Spring" symbolize both strength and pain, healing and grief, as the young narrator grapples with his grandmother's drug addiction.

Dive further into the abstract, reveling in the delight of craftily-chosen language and rhythm as each line trips across your tongue in poems like Paloma Lenz's "the Mind's Oasis eludes" and Kay Mi's "abstractions." Wendelyn Bintrim's photograph "Autumn Waterfall" will bring you down to earth again with its muted tones and sense of captured movement before you are transported to the post-apocalyptic world of Kevin Xu's short fiction piece "Family Trip." In a world of ruined cities haunted by shadow creatures, the story’s emotional focus is on the nomadic family who must confront the difficult question of what pieces of the past we should hold onto, and what—or who—we must leave behind.

At every turn, our contributors balk tradition and defy expectations through their confrontation of the status quo. Natalie Chan's poem "LIKE YOU MEAN IT" boldly examines the drive for perfection and the pressure to work oneself to the bone for art. Similarly, Kay Mi's visually evocative and heart-wrenching poem "honor code violation" explores the pressure students face in our modern world to not just succeed, but excel--so i am killing myself / for excellence. In Nerika Cariaga's "Belonging to an Eclipse," the speaker comes to terms with their failure to meet such unattainable goals in a system that is already rigged against them. These expectations are defied in Ashley Barletta's poem "Tamed," where the speaker implores to be treated like the capable, independent person they are. In our final poem, Jannah Yusuf Al-Jamil's powerful "Oldest Sister Syndrome," the speaker questions the hefty responsibilities often placed on older sisters.

I'm so excited to feature these amazing young writers and artists, and I'm exceptionally grateful for the platform and community of support we've been able to build here. Less than a year ago, this magazine was just a twinkle in our eyes, a far-off dream. Over the last nine months, along with the work of our dedicated student editors and our faculty editor, Dr. Brennan Thomas, we have given a platform to the work of burgeoning young talent both locally and abroad and dispensed much encouragement and feedback along the way.
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As our magazine keeps growing, we hope to continue amplifying the voices of young writers and artists. Particularly in times like these, I hope this issue can be a beacon in the darkness, a place where one can gather and seek refuge. As in our first issue, let these works of art be the stars that guide you to new realms, new perspectives, and new constellations.

- Tara Fritz, Managing Editor

​Do it how you always do,
and I’ll watch it from here. You
dance and I'll be here. Your footprints
are liquid sorrow. You grieve
every last step. Rinse, repeat.

Why turn if you know
that you’re leaving your shadow to die?
Stop. Hands on your hips. Look
into the camera. Let your passion bleed.
Let them see some blood.

​the lifeless arms of A willow tree
stiffly hover over a lake that
shoves every wave onto land
as thunder threatens discord.
it murmurs incoherent      promises 
of how to go to                  Before

dawn: 
a honeyed sweetness pouring against shadows 
             whittled by the carved bone-knife of wanting, 
pale bruised horizon spilling like a river over the windowsill 
             (red as a knife, 
             red as the mouth of an unkempt martyr) 
and our orphic tragedies singing into the sand. 
the painting is an impression of itself; 
we were never here, our hands 
             never twisted in the sheets, fingers never wrapped
             around the ornate grille of the broken window 
             as the angle of the sunlight split 
             ​us into pieces. 

​A cardboard box with the word “analogs” 
All over the front
Written in your favorite glitter marker from the local craft store
Stickers from its cardboard fall to the floor
You close your eyes, pick one of the photographs like a secret ballot-picking stunt

​How does it feel to not be the one?

​In this dream of perennial frost
Spring is a tear 
trapped behind an eyelid

​But against all odds and ends,
you arrived 
(Like I’d always known you would)

​Why am I always the one
who is disciplined,
when everyone tells me I am so good?
I will not be “put in my place”
I don’t have one,
and I can switch lanes whenever I want. 
We grow up learning
that we are in charge of our own lives,
but they forgot to mention
that it’s not until
we’re pounded into submission,
until we’re too scared to change.
Not me.
I guess that’s why I get into trouble–
because I refuse to be held back by
“my responsibilities” any longer.
You don’t have to hold my hand anymore.
Going out into the world and doing good isn’t hard; I do it already.
So you can let go,
because I won’t leave
to go and do drugs
or have parties with kegs;
I will sit here and listen to you complain about me.

mind i left abandoned 
like an old house 
             dull gray and concave, derelict 
where the moths beat their wings in search of a heartbeat
where they make their nests in paper flowers,
             pressing into the sharp-and-soft edges and learning
             how not to give in— 
fluttering around homes standing 
             ​derelict, dull gray and concave 
to rest their little bodies 
             which weigh them down like years, 
             ​like ebony seasons. 

​​Everyone's scared of becoming their parents, but what happens when it really becomes reality? What 
happens when I habitually yell for my youngest sister to be careful and hear my mom instead? What 
happens when I've feared becoming a mother because that's all they expected from me and then 
here I am, with the voice of one? What happens? What happens? When will it happen? I used 
to think that parents had all the answers. I used to never speak to my father. One of those is still 
true. I kiss my sister on the top of her head and I think about saying goodnight to my dad on 
the rare weekends he was home. I hug my other sister on Eid because that's when she'll let me and I
       think about how she's gotten so tall and how that sounds like a bit of a parental thought. I 
feel so old all the time. I'm waiting for it to pass but my back aches more and more. I joke about 
finding gray hair but it comes from stress and I am so, so stressed. Sometimes I think about how 
my father is how he is because of his father. I don't think I'll ever have children. God, please don't let
       ​me have children. My sisters are difficult enough as is. I am difficult enough as is.