Poetry by Rowan Evans

Author’s Note

Sometimes writing becomes survival before you even realize that’s what it’s turned into.

This piece came from the realization that I often disappear into craft when my mind gets too loud. I’ll drift into rhyme schemes, metaphors, cadence, imagery—anything that helps me stay afloat emotionally.

Not because I’m trying to escape life completely.

More because writing gives shape to feelings that otherwise feel impossible to carry.

A lot of this poem revolves around rootlessness: the feeling of growing in soil that never fully nurtured you, while still refusing to break under the pressure of it.
And I think that distinction matters.

Struggling to root yourself somewhere doesn’t mean you’re weak. Sometimes it simply means the environment around you was never meant to hold the version of you that was trying to grow.

So this piece became less about collapse and more about persistence.

About continuing to create meaning even while feeling displaced.

About refusing to let your environment define your voice.

— Rowan Evans

The Soil Won’t Write Me
Poetry by Rowan Evans

I’m sorry—
I got lost again.

Drifting between lines,
bouncing between rhymes—
if life’s a game,
I keep forgetting to play.

Too focused on the craft,
lost sight of the life behind it.

Don’t worry—
I’m not in danger.

I’ve just gone quiet—
trying to silence
a mental riot.

Thoughts get too loud,
become a stranger to myself.

I get lost in the craft,
turn the pen to a life raft.

Ink crashes
like waves overhead,
carrying secrets
in the cadence
of the tides.

Because every rhyme
is a shoreline
on ocean’s edge.

And this is how it works for me—

it starts small
then quickly grows—
a seed
into a tree.

A tree big and tall,
but the foundation is weak—
there are no roots here
to anchor me.

They say I’d waver
in the slightest breeze.

But that’s not true,
just because I have no roots—
doesn’t mean that I will falter,
it just means
life won’t come with ease.

It just means
this soil wasn’t right for me—

and these people
cannot speak for me,
I write what I think
in ink and let that
carry what I mean.

All that means—
I won’t let this soil write for me.

And I’ll deal with
this stuck feeling,
that I feel
deep inside—
in the only way
I know how…

I’ve got to write it out,
can’t ignore it.

Got to ride it out.

Journey into the Hexverse…

[The Needle Doesn’t Point North]
“The Needle Doesn’t Point North” is a deeply personal free verse poem about displacement, identity, and spending a lifetime feeling emotionally disconnected from the place you were born while being drawn toward distant shores.

[Weather in My Chest]
“Weather in My Chest” is a free verse poem about emotional hyperawareness, social tension, and the quiet experience of carrying internal storms into rooms that react before a singl[e word is spoken.

[Sound as a Vessel]
“Sound as a Vessel” is a free verse poem about music as emotional architecture, exploring how international artists and soundscapes shaped identity, creativity, memory, and poetic voice.

[Just Knowing You Has Been Enough]
“Just Knowing You Has Been Enough” is a deeply vulnerable free verse poem about unspoken love, emotional fear, coded confessions, and the quiet truth of caring for someone without needing perfection in return.

[The Streets I Walk When I Sleep]
“The Streets I Walk When I Sleep” is a deeply intimate free verse poem about recurring dreams, emotional connection, longing across distance, and the strange feeling of remembering places and moments that have never happened in waking life.

[Memories From a Life Yet to Come]
Some dreams feel less like fantasy and more like memory. “Memories From a Life Yet to Come” is a reflective free verse poem about longing, displacement, emotional alignment, and the strange comfort of recognizing yourself more clearly in dreams than in waking life

[Separate Timelines]
“Separate Timelines” is a surreal and deeply introspective free verse poem about emotional distance, time zones, vulnerability, and the fear of losing a connection that already feels meaningful before the words are ever spoken aloud.

If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]