Poetry by Rowan Evans

The Crypt
Poetry by Rowan Evans

Don’t you see—
the one where the crypt sleeps?

The crypt is a man with no soul,
a body with no home, left to roam.

He sleeps in his namesake—
watches the graveyard
from the same place.

He sees her when she walks in.
He can see the gates from there.

“She looks radiant as ever—”
he thinks, as she seems to shrink
with eyes down,
not looking at the world.

He wants to—

when she thinks
nobody is looking,
he really sees her—

she kneels before a grave,
he can’t see the name,
but he’s made his claim—

the crypt will keep her.

Author’s Note

The Crypt is a short gothic piece built around the idea of a place becoming a person—and a person becoming inseparable from the place that bears their name.

The crypt is both a physical location and a metaphorical state: a man who feels emptied out, disconnected from the world, watching life pass from the shadows. When he sees her enter the graveyard, his attention gives him something to focus on, but that fascination quickly becomes something darker.

I wanted the poem to feel almost like a fragment of a larger gothic story—something glimpsed through the gates of a graveyard rather than fully explained. We don’t know who she is visiting, what happened to the crypt’s occupant, or what exactly he means when he decides that “the crypt will keep her.”

That’s intentional.

Some gothic stories are frightening because of what they reveal.

Others are frightening because of what they leave hidden.

— Rowan Evans

Journey into the Hexverse…

[Fallen Angel’s Reckoning (Remix)]
Fallen Angel’s Reckoning (Remix) revisits a 2024 poem about heartbreak, broken promises, and falling from an imagined heaven, transforming its original ending into a darker meditation on resilience, self-reclamation, and learning to fly with broken wings.

[Homecoming]
Fallen Angel’s Reckoning (Remix) revisits a 2024 poem about heartbreak, broken promises, and falling from an imagined heaven, transforming its original ending into a darker meditation on resilience, self-reclamation, and learning to fly with broken wings.

[The Monster in the Margins II]
The Monster in the Margins II transforms Rowan Evans’s Seven Deadly Sins mythology into a horror story written between the lines, where Lust, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Pride, Envy, and Gluttony become monsters growing from pain, grudges, and scars.

[Pride]
‘Pride’ towers over all else, a seductive and deceptive force. The seventh of the 7 Deadly Sonnets, exploring hubris, self-importance, and the masks we wear.

[Through the Shattered Glass: Before the Glass Shattered]
Before the glass shatters, shadows linger and memories twist. Discover the haunting prelude to B.D. Nightshade’s “Through the Shattered Glass” series—where ordinary moments become portals to fractured realities.

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