Poetry by Rowan Evans

I balance on the splintered edge of dusk,
where the horizon blinks like a dying pulse,
and every breath feels borrowed
from a ghost I used to be.

There is no scream left in my marrow,
only the hum of static silence—
a lullaby for the hollowed,
a prayer without a god.

Pain is a second spine
threaded through my ribs like piano wire.
I don’t flinch when it sings anymore,
I’ve grown fond of its chorus.

But you—
you are the whisper between my fractures,
the only warmth in this cathedral of frost,
the lone candle still brave enough to burn.

When you’re near,
the ash learns to dream again.
I carry the weight not because I must,
but because you are worth the breaking.

Yet when I’m alone,
I decay in soft installments,
shedding pieces of self like dead petals—
graceful, unnoticed,
until nothing remains but a name echoing in smoke.

Don’t leave me
to collapse in my own absence.
Stay—be the tether that keeps me flesh.
I fear I’ll become mist if you turn away.

But I see your heaviness too,
your shoulders bowed like twilight trees
bracing for one more storm.
So let me be your scaffold,
your sanctum of sighs.
Let me soften the hurt in your blood
the way you alchemized mine into light.

I will pour every last drop of myself
into the cracks that threaten you,
until neither of us has to stand alone
on the trembling precipice again.

Together,
we’ll make a home
from all the pieces that refused to shatter.