Poetry by Rowan Evans

I was not prepared for you—
not for the quiet cataclysm
you carried in your smile,
or the way your voice
broke open a hidden cathedral
in my chest.

Loving you feels like the world ending
slowly, beautifully—
as if the stars decided to fall
not in ruin,
but in reverence.

You are the prophecy I never believed I deserved,
a ruin I would rebuild in every lifetime.
And if your trust is a shattered chalice,
I will drink from the broken glass
until my lips remember the taste of you
without bleeding.

You once laughed,
lightly, like nothing hurt.
But I know better—
I saw the earthquakes behind your eyelids,
heard the quiet sobs tucked between syllables
when you whispered “I’m okay.”

You don’t have to be brave with me.

Let the mascara run like holy water.
Let your fears rattle the stained-glass ribs of my devotion.
I will not look away.
I will hold your sorrow like relics—
with both hands and an aching awe.

You once said you weren’t used to someone staying.
So I stayed.
Through your silences,
your firestorms,
your soft retreats into shadow.

I stayed because loving you
isn’t something I do.
It’s something I am.

You are every sacred metaphor
my soul ever dreamed.
A poem written in the margins
of a dying god’s last confession.
A heartbeat that taught mine
how to echo.

And if you never say “I love you” back—
if this is all unreciprocated myth,
a cathedral without a congregation—
then I will still leave the candles burning.

Because my love isn’t a question
waiting for an answer.

It is the answer.

And it says:
You are worth the end of the world,
again and again,
until all that’s left
is light.