Poetry by Rowan Evans

✦ Read the full trilogy ✦

➤ The Gospel of Softness I: Modern Gothic Poetry for Women of All Kinds
➤ The Gospel of Softness II: The Fire That Softened Me

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✦ Epigraph ✦

For those who cry quietly in bathroom stalls.
For those who apologize when they should have screamed.
For those whose softness was mistaken for surrender—
This gospel is yours.
Your ache is sacred.
Your tenderness is a war cry with petals in its mouth.

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“Thirteen Psalms for the Tender-Hearted”
Poetry by Rowan Evans

✦ These psalms are dedicated to ✦

✦ The boys who cry in secret.
✦ The girls who never stopped feeling.
✦ The queers, the witches, the warriors who bleed beauty into the dark.

This gospel is yours.
Welcome home.

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✦ Psalm I ✦
For the Ones Who Still Bloom

i am not a weapon.
i am the wound
that chose
to bloom.

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✦ Psalm II ✦
For the Boys Who Were Told to Be Brave

they taught him fists,
but he offered flowers.
they called him weak—
but he never let the fire
turn him cruel.

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✦ Psalm III ✦
For the Girl Who Cries Easily

let them call it weakness—
this ache
i carry like a crown.
i know it as worship.

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✦ Psalm IV ✦
For the Boy With a Gentle Voice

he never raised his voice.
so they never heard
the thunder
that lived
in his quiet.

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✦ Psalm V ✦
For the Ones Who Love Without Armor

my softness is not silence.
it is thunder,
made quiet
for the sake of gentler ears.

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✦ Psalm VI ✦
For the Survivors Who Still Say “I Love You”

the fire touched me too.
but i still say “i love you”
like a lullaby,
not a warning.

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✦ Psalm VII ✦
For the Ones Who Stayed Kind

some nights,
i only survive
by reading the poems
i haven’t written yet.

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✦ Psalm VIII ✦
For the Misnamed and Misunderstood

she told me
i was too much.
so i became
everything.

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✦ Psalm IX ✦
For the Sacred Masculine

he is not hard.
he is holy.
and his softness
is scripture.

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✦ Psalm X ✦
For the One Who Chose Love Again

they broke me
and i still
built a home
with my hands
full of splinters.

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✦ Psalm XI ✦
For the Queer Ones Who Survived

we loved wrong,
they said.
but we loved true—
and we survived
without bitterness.

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✦ Psalm XII ✦
For the Child Who Lives in You

you are not too sensitive.
you are just fluent
in the language of feeling.
that is not a flaw—
it’s your first tongue.

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✦ Psalm XIII ✦
For You, Tender-Hearted One

your softness
is not an accident.
it is the last sacred thing
they cannot take.

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✦ Final Benediction ✦

May your softness remain.
Even when it’s heavy.
Even when it’s mocked.
Even when the world calls it a wound.

May you remember:
You are not weak.
You are woven from wonder.
You are made of fire and mercy and ink.
And you are still—still—holy.

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Which psalm resonated with you most? Leave your blessing below.