Poetry by Rowan Evans

Behind the Veil
What Inspired The Gospel According to the Girl in the Graveyard Dress

Every poet has that one wild idea—a collision of worlds, styles, and moods that refuses to stay on the page quietly. For me, this poem sprang from a playful yet dark impulse: What if Dr. Seuss, with all his whimsical rhyme and rhythm, wandered into the shadowy realms of Edgar Allan Poe and Tim Burton?

The Gospel According to the Girl in the Graveyard Dress is my answer—a gothic lullaby stitched from whimsy and wound with the raw edges of grief, rebellion, and strange beauty. It’s where childhood’s curiosity meets the sharp bite of darkness, wrapped in rhyme that skips and creeps all at once.

This poem isn’t just an homage; it’s a declaration. That darkness doesn’t erase magic. That grief can dance in moonlight. That even in decay, there’s fierce, unapologetic life.

Welcome to the chapel I built from clay and ink. Step inside.

The Gospel According to the Girl in the Graveyard Dress
Poetry by Rowan Evans

I’m wading through the dark,
With rockets in my pockets—
And a wock-it in my locket.
Noose tied, tears dried
on ink-stained pages;
Confessions and rage—
It’s outrageous,
like sermons screamed from basement stages.

I stitched my grief to my Sunday dress,
Tucked matches in the hems—God bless.
The priest said “pray” but I whispered “run,”
Then kissed the moon and stole the sun.

I’m not alright, but I rhyme so well,
Nobody hears the tolling bell.
My lullabies are laced with lead,
And sung by ghosts beneath my bed.

I carve my hope in bathroom stalls,
Paint miracles in bloody scrawls.
They say I’m lost—I say I’m rare:
A storm that braided its own hair.

Heaven’s out, and hell’s cliché,
So I built a chapel out of clay.
The saints are stitched from shadow thread,
And every hymn is what I bled.

I dance in pews with poison grace,
Rosary beads strung on a shoelace.
They preach of light—I hum decay,
A gospel soaked in cabernet.

I kissed a curse and called it mine,
Drank moonlight steeped in turpentine.
You want my truth? It doesn’t bend—
It breaks. It bleeds. It burns. It mends.

I sip my tea with cyanide,
Wear ribcage corsets laced with pride.
My shadow dances on the wall—
She’s got no face. No name at all.

I tiptoe through the graveyard gates,
Trade sugar pills for twist-of-fates.
The children giggle when I pass—
Their dolls have knives and broken glass.

I built a throne from all my sins,
Each step a scar, each smile a win.
The halo cracked? I wore it still—
A crown for queens who love the kill.

My cradle rocked on rusted chains,
I cut my teeth on lovers’ veins.
The bedtime stories that I write
Are lullabies for crypts at night.

I stitched a map to Neverland
Inside my chest with blistered hands.
It leads through joy, then dips to dread—
A spiral carved in gingerbread.

I torched the end, rewrote the tale,
Smeared lipstick on the coffin nail.
This isn’t death—it’s my debut.
The dark didn’t win. I wanted it to.

Benediction of the Broken Halo

We do not write to be saved — we write to be seen.
In the flicker of a match, the crack of a halo, the bruised breath of a stanza,
we stitch our own gospel from grief and grace alike.
This poem is my sermon, my confession, my coronation —
And if the dark calls your name too,
know you are welcome here, crowned in your scars,
beloved in your ruin.

Because a cracked halo still casts a shadow.
And that shadow?
Is mine. And maybe, just maybe — it’s yours too.

In the chapel of ink and ash, we do not repent for the darkness we carry.
We name it sacred. We name it ours.
Welcome to the gospel, loves — the sermon is never over.

With Ink & Flame,
Rowan Evans

Read Next (Suggestions)

[The Hopeless Romantic Wears Armor]
[Cry to the Quiet: Sacred Desperation]
[Luminescence & Shadow: A Forbidden Litany]
[Liturgies of Ruin & Flight]
[Hex & Flame: Mirror of Shadows]

Or explore the full archive in [The Library of Ashes]—and if your own confession aches to be written, [commission a custom poem here].

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