"It’s, like, so inconvenient when the dead body of your rich uncle starts to decompose in your bathtub."

Published in Rat World Magazine Issue Four [January 2023]

Hot Girl Summer

"i rub my face into the fuzz of his jersey and think that someday
i’ll grow old too, and then i’ll be him instead
brackets running down my cheeks
wispy curl upon my forehead"

Published in The Martello Journal Edition IV: Sanctuary [February 2023]

Words For My Dad

"when i was 10:
  i folded 
                  sheets of paper
                                              into snowflakes."

Published in the Snowflake Magazine Anthology [January 2023]

Icemelt-To-Bleedingsun

"Now, I sit on a hard-backed pew, watching in silence
as the virtuoso draws a requiem out of the belly of her cello."

Published in the Snowflake Magazine Anthology [January 2023]

Pro Patri

"at boarding school, asking to
bum a fag meant perching a
rollie on the crease of your lips
and saying cheers."

Published in the Snowflake Magazine Anthology [January 2023]

Geometry of a Schoolboy

"gummy bear kisses and melty lipgloss smiles
          spring feels different when it’s blooming from your eyes"

Published in Moon Cola Zine Issue 5: What Would Barbie Do? [February 2023]

Kissing Girls

"Ordinarily, I would have declined. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have deigned to acknowledge her presence to begin with. This is not an ordinary night."

Published in Powders Press Issue 4: Spectrum [January 2023]

Indigo Cheese Melt

"four hundred years since the starving
artist put a hungry bullet in their head
pencil scratch in the margins, inkblot
on the skin of the naked verb’s face"

Published in Unstamatic: The Unconditional* Acceptance Call [November 2022]

Remembrance In Three Parts

"He’s certainly foreign to me, but something about him considering me an outsider rankles me, though I can’t put my finger on the reason why."

Published in The B’K Vol. 13, Issue 4 [October 2022]

See Me In A Stranger

"But no number of prayers can save the damned,
and I’ve damned myself willingly."

Published in Roi Fainéant Press Mile 13 [April 2022]

Fire & Brimstone

"Howl for me beneath your indigo moon, Boy-Wolf,
Sing the song of your people, of the ravished land,
Of the nations that have risen and fallen."

Published in Moss Puppy Magazine Issue 2: Puppy Love [May 2022]

Boy-Wolf

"Boil the water, mix with cold until it’s
Lukewarm, nice and cosy for the little granny’s toes
Pour the water into the mug — you’re making rat tea"

Published in Bullshit Lit Anthology 1 [August 2022]

How To Bathe A Rat

"first, i hold your face in my hands
and then i touch you all over

palms brushing the space between
your shoulder blades, which i love to kiss"

Published in The Gamut Mag Issue 2: Pink [July 2022]

Blush

"I cannot look you in the eye,
Nor can I watch your retreating back,
But I can hold you through whispers —
Our hips bracketing our love,
Our legs a facsimile of parallel lines."

Published in Discretionary Love [March 2022]

The Spaces Between Us

"I lie in bed and I sweat for secrets. I sweat for the years I’ve spent hiding myself, being ashamed of my face and my voice and my body."

Published in en*gendered [June 2022]

Sweat

"there’s a piece of me that got lost
in translation, in the space between
two hands jointly clasped."

Published in Corporeal [June 2022]

Autodecomposition of a Human Soul

"pinch the fat from my bones.
skin me. butcher me."

Published in Brave Voices [June 2022]

Last Request

"I am not your doll, nor am I
your pretty little gisaeng,
plucking three-four gently on the gayageum,
inky braids coiled upon my crown."

Published in EVOKE [June 2022]

Sol Kim Cowell

Selected work