This piece started because of a single lyric in a song.
A line about EBT that made me laugh a little because my immediate reaction was: “Do you know who listens to your music? We know exactly what that means.”
And that memory spiral hit instantly.
This poem isn’t really about poverty in the dramatic sense. It’s about environmental memory. The small things that stay with you long after you leave certain stages of your life behind.
Dry ramen because there wasn’t money for extras. Hot concrete in triple-digit summers. Waiting for sprinklers to turn on just so the neighborhood kids could cool off. The strange rhythm of knowing exactly when EBT would hit every month because that date mattered.
I grew up in California’s Central Valley, and people who haven’t lived there sometimes underestimate how much the environment shapes you. The heat feels physical in memory. The dryness becomes part of your emotional vocabulary.
That’s where the title comes from.
“Drought resistant” isn’t just about the land. It’s about the people too.
And while this piece carries humor and regional slang intentionally, there’s something sincere underneath it: a complicated kind of affection for the place that raised me.
Not because it was easy. Not because it was glamorous.
But because it’s part of me anyway.
— Rowan Evans
The Central Valley teaches you how to survive long before you realize survival is what you’re learning.
Drought Resistant Poetry by Rowan Evans
I grew up poor-poor,
couldn’t even afford
water for my ramen.
Ate it dry—
standing on hot concrete
cooking my feet.
It was that
Central Valley heat—
Back when
kids were askin’—
is it our turn today,
to let the water spray?
We just wanted to be
kids in play—
Do you know
what it’s like
to ride a bike
through a
convection oven?
That was my
environment.
The Central Valley,
where even our
trees are hard—
drought resistant,
like we wish our
pockets are.
The 5th of every month
EBT hit—
no brand names,
couldn’t afford it.
We shopped for
Great Value—
Glacier Ranch
Tortilla Chips.
Go ahead
and diss me,
dismiss me.
But your diss is
Peter Pan,
it will Neverland.
California in my blood,
California in my DNA—
it’s hella tight,
it’s hella cool.
Yea’ dude.
Journey into the Hexverse…
[Escaped to the Page] “Escaped to the Page” is a confessional meta-poem about individuality, artistic identity, and surviving through writing. Blending sharp confidence with emotional vulnerability, the poem explores the difference between shared labels and lived experience—and the ways art becomes inseparable from the life behind it.
[Ink as a Second Mouth] “Ink as a Second Mouth” explores the distance between thought and speech, and the ways writing can become a form of survival, continuity, and self-translation. Through confessional imagery and reflections on growth, identity, and articulation, the poem examines what it means to keep becoming through language.
This piece was written while listening to “Role Model” by Eminem, and you can probably feel that influence in the posture of it.
There’s swagger here. Sharpness. A little confrontation.
But beneath that, this piece is really about the difference between shared labels and shared experience.
Two people can both call themselves poets and still arrive at the page from completely different places emotionally, stylistically, philosophically, and spiritually. The label itself doesn’t erase individuality. If anything, art becomes meaningful because of the differences in how we carry our histories into it.
That’s what this poem is wrestling with.
Not superiority. Specificity.
The truth is, I’ve spent more than two decades building my relationship with language. Not just learning how to write, but learning how to survive through writing. A lot of the imagery in this piece—cathedrals, altars, confession, Gothic romanticism—comes from the emotional architecture I’ve spent years constructing around my work.
Those images aren’t aesthetic decoration for me. They’re autobiographical.
When I say my environment “felt more like a cage,” I mean that literally in the emotional sense. Writing became escape, translation, preservation, and eventually identity. The page became the place where I could expand beyond the limits of the environments I grew up inside.
So while the voice in this poem is intentionally bold, the core of it is actually vulnerable: the fear of becoming interchangeable, the need to protect individuality, and the understanding that art is shaped as much by lived experience as talent itself.
Because someone can imitate style. They can imitate rhythm. They can imitate aesthetic.
But nobody else has lived your exact life.
And eventually, that truth always bleeds through the writing.
— Rowan Evans
Some people write because they want to. Some write because the page became the only place they could fully exist.
Escaped to the Page Poetry by Rowan Evans
You could be just like me,
you could write like me—
be full of empathy like me,
definition of compassion just like me.
You could be just like me—
but still you’d never be me.
You could build worlds
with words, just like me—
cathedrals and altars,
reverence and devotion, just like me—
You could imitate the shape—
but you’d never be the source.
Don’t even try, just stop.
You think we’re the same
because the labels we wear?
I’m a poet, you’re a poet too—
but that doesn’t make us a matching pair.
Twenty-three years,
I’ve been doing this—
metaphors like weapons,
meta-poetry, meta-lessons—
look at everything I’ve written.
Confessions penned
in Gothic lace,
Romanticized darkness
because that’s the only place
I feel at home.
My environment
felt more like a cage,
so I escaped to the page.
I wrote lines of longing,
looking for belonging—
because I’ve been knowing,
this isn’t the place I’d finish growing.
Journey into the Hexverse…
[Ink as a Second Mouth] “Ink as a Second Mouth” explores the distance between thought and speech, and the ways writing can become a form of survival, continuity, and self-translation. Through confessional imagery and reflections on growth, identity, and articulation, the poem examines what it means to keep becoming through language.
This piece comes from the space where speech and writing don’t quite align.
There has always been a kind of delay for me—between what I think, what I feel, and what I can actually say out loud. Spoken language has never felt like the most reliable place for truth to land. It slips. It fractures. It gets filtered through hesitation, timing, or silence.
Writing became something different.
Not a replacement for speech, but a translation of it.
A second mouth.
One that doesn’t hesitate in the same way.
One that doesn’t need to arrive perfectly formed in real time.
Over time, I’ve come to understand my writing less as expression and more as continuity—a way of carrying versions of myself forward that might otherwise get lost between changes, growth, or silence. When I talk about shedding “lives like shells,” it isn’t about abandoning who I was, but making space for who I’m becoming.
Writing is where those versions remain visible.
Where they don’t disappear just because I’ve outgrown them.
In that sense, this isn’t just about communication—it’s about survival through articulation. Not in the dramatic sense, but in the quiet one: staying connected to myself through language when voice doesn’t fully bridge the gap.
And if spoken language is the place where I sometimes fall short of myself, then writing is where I learn how to keep translating who I am anyway.
— Rowan Evans
If spoken language is where I fall short of myself, then writing is how I keep translating who I am anyway.
Ink as a Second Mouth Poetry by Rowan Evans
There is a delay
between my mind
and my mouth
when I speak—
that’s why I find
it easier to talk in ink.
I turned my pen
into my mouth,
so when I write
it’s the only time—
the truth spills through.
When I open my mouth,
my words won’t come out—
but in ink, they run
like the secrets slip
from loose lips.
I could write poem after poem,
leaving piece after piece of me behind—
scattered across the pages,
like versions of me scattered
across different lives.
But do not mourn
for what I’ve lost,
because it’s simply the cost
of me being me.
I shed past lives,
it leaves room for me to grow—
just a hermit crab
in human form.
And I’ll continue
to shed lives like shells until
I find the version of myself—
that can speak
in more than ink.
Until then I’ll continue to try,
because growth comes slow.
It’s gradual, it never comes clear.
I Just Want to Leave captures the restless, exilic energy that often pulses beneath my poetry. It is a declaration of detachment from a place that feels stifling, a yearning for freedom, and the fierce self-awareness that comes from knowing your worth and choosing to protect it. This piece resonates with anyone who has ever felt too much, too intense, or simply out of place—and serves as a reminder that leaving sometimes isn’t running away, it’s reclaiming yourself.
“I Just Want to Leave” – A neo-gothic confessional poem by Rowan Evans about yearning, exile, and reclaiming oneself.
I Just Want to Leave Poetry by Rowan Evans
They say— “You need to put yourself out there,” but I put myself out there, and nobody seems to connect with me. That’s fine—really though— ‘cause I don’t like Americans, I just want to leave.
You’re proud to be an American? Well, not me.
“If you don’t like it here, just leave.”
Did you not hear what I just said? That’s exactly what I’m tryin’ to do. If I could, I’d be gone tomorrow, boo. Yeah, I’d pull a Danny Phantom— going ghost.
I’d take a plane, or stowaway to escape. I’d cross oceans— hell, I’d swim if I had to.
They say, “be proud,” but pride tastes like poison here. I’ve got no flag, pledge no allegiance. All I’ve got— is an open wound that wants to heal… somewhere else.
It’d be— goodbye forever, and I’m never coming back.
If you just want to read more of my work, you can find it all here:[The Library of Ashes]
I’m just… sitting here trying to figure out how to put all of this into words. These poems—they’re not tidy. They’re not meant to be. They are me trying to talk to myself, to the child I was, to the person I am now, to anyone who might understand.
I’ve been writing for over twenty-two years. Twenty-two. I started when I was thirteen, barely a kid. By fourteen, I was deep into Japanese music, culture, media… then Korean, then Chinese. I lived a Japanese life in America. Movies, music, shows, rituals I made in my head—I was building a world where I felt like I belonged, even if the world around me didn’t make sense.
I was also depressed. Anxious. I felt different from everyone else, but nobody really said why. Autism wasn’t mentioned. I didn’t have the language for it. Gender identity—same thing. I didn’t feel the things “I was supposed to” as a boy. I felt disconnected. I felt unseen. I felt untethered. I still sometimes do.
I asked my parents, over and over: where are we from? Beyond the U.S., what’s our heritage? They said we were mutts. And yeah, I get it. But it left me with this gnawing emptiness—a gap I couldn’t fill. I tried to make sense of it all, but there wasn’t a clear answer.
These poems are me talking to that inner child. Roo the Poet is that child’s voice—the part of me that’s been scared, lonely, unheard, and also resilient. They are a dialogue, a witness, a reminder that even when life is overwhelming, even when the world is messy and cruel, I—we—can keep moving, keep dreaming, keep reaching for light, even when it seems impossible.
They are raw. They are messy. They carry grief, rage, confusion, hope, and the quiet fire of persistence. I’m putting them here because I need them to exist. Because I need to say: it’s okay to feel all of it. It’s okay to be broken. It’s okay to question, to rage, to cry, to laugh, to search, to not have the answers.
I hope anyone reading this feels some part of it too. The fear, the hurt, the wonder, the resilience. The poems are my way of saying: you are not alone. The child inside you is still here. The voice that whispers your truths is still here. And maybe, just maybe, we can keep walking forward together.
— Rowan Evans
The Child & The Future Poetry by Roo the Poet featuring Rowan Evans
[Roo the Poet] Tell me, have we made it? Did our dreams take flight? Do our words now dance on pages, Spilling truth in black and white?
I held the light so tightly, Afraid it’d slip away, But I kept it burning, flickering, To guide us through the grey.
[Rowan] We’re not there yet, but we’re close, Closer than we’ve ever been. And Roo, it wouldn’t be possible Without the fire you lit within.
You taught me to hold on, Even when the night grew cold. That light always casts a shadow, But both are stories to be told.
[Roo the Poet] Do we still dream in color, Like we did when we were small? Do we still believe in magic, In the rise after the fall?
Do we still whisper wishes, To the stars beyond the pane? Do we still chase the echoes, Of our past, through joy and pain?
[Rowan] We dream, Roo, oh, we dream, But now with eyes wide open. We shape the stories with steady hands, No longer lost, no longer broken.
The magic never left us, It just grew in different ways— In the strength of ink and paper, In the fire that never fades.
[Roo the Poet] Then I have no fears, no sorrow, For the path we’ve yet to tread. Because you still carry the child I was, Even as you forge ahead.
So promise me, no matter what, That light will always stay? That the shadow won’t consume us, That we won’t be led astray?
[Rowan] I promise, Roo, I swear it true, The light will always shine. Because you’re the voice that kept me strong, The heart that still beats inside mine.
So walk with me—hand in hand, Through darkness, through the dawn. For every dream we’ve yet to chase, Together, we’ll carry on.
Lost in the Why Poetry by Roo the Poet
I don’t understand why the sun feels colder, Why laughter sounds distant, like echoes in stone. They say time will heal, that pain makes us older, But I still feel small, lost and alone.
The world keeps moving, but I stand still, Feet stuck in puddles that no one else sees. I try to be strong, to bend to their will, But inside, I’m just whispering, “Please.”
Please tell me why the stars seem dimmer, Why warmth feels like a memory’s trace. Why grown-ups cry with voices that quiver, Yet smile like grief doesn’t leave stains on their face.
I reach for the hands that once held me tight, But fingers slip through, like sand in the breeze. Was I meant to lose before knowing the light? To learn that love sometimes leaves?
I hide my heart in paper-thin walls, Shielding the child I used to be. But each crack whispers, each shadow calls, That pain is the price of growing free.
I don’t understand why the sun feels colder, But I’ll carry its warmth in the way that I shine. Even if grief makes my shoulders older, I’ll still hold space for the child inside.
The Past & The Present Poetry byRoo the Poetfeaturing Rowan Evans
[Roo the Poet] Are you tired, Rowan? I see your tears, your sad eyes, but you’re still standing— a little wobbly, but you’re still standing, like a toy with no batteries, but you keep going, don’t you?
[Rowan] It’s hard, Roo. I feel like the wind keeps pushing me, and I just… bend. How do I keep going when I don’t know where I’m going?
[Roo the Poet] But you are going, right? Like a tree with roots way deep in the ground— You bend, but you don’t break. The wind can blow and blow, but you stand up, because you’re strong inside. I know you are.
[Rowan] I don’t always feel strong. I feel like I’m falling apart sometimes, like the world is too big, and I’m just too small to do anything.
[Roo the Poet] You’re not too small! You’re big and strong like the moon, even when it hides behind the clouds. It’s still there, shining real bright, even if we can’t see it. I’m like that too. I’m always here, like the moon.
[Rowan] But what if I can’t find my way back to the light? What if the pieces of me just don’t fit anymore?
[Roo the Poet] Then we make new pieces! We glue ‘em together, make a brand new picture! It’s okay to be a little broken. Everyone’s a little broken sometimes. But that doesn’t mean you’re not special.
[Rowan] I don’t know if I can be fixed, Roo. I’m too tired.
[Roo the Poet] But you CAN be fixed, Rowan! You just gotta be patient. It takes time, like putting together a puzzle. And sometimes, you have to wait for the pieces to find their place. But that’s okay— you’ll figure it out. I know you will.
[Rowan] And what about you? You always know what to say. How are you so sure that everything will be okay?
[Roo the Poet] Because I trust you, silly! You’re like a little seed that will grow into the biggest flower, even when it’s all dark and hard. I know you can do it, Rowan. You’ll bloom, I promise.
[Rowan] I don’t feel like blooming yet. I just feel stuck, like I’m caught in the mud.
[Roo the Poet] You’re not stuck! You’re just waiting, like a flower needs the rain. The sun will come, I KNOW it will. And then you’ll be all bright and pretty.
[Rowan] But what if I miss the sun? What if it doesn’t come for me?
[Roo the Poet] Then we’ll make our own sun! We can draw it, paint it, make it real big! We don’t have to wait, Rowan. We can shine all by ourselves.
[Rowan] I didn’t think I could do it alone, but you… you make me feel like I can try.
[Roo the Poet] You don’t have to do it alone. I’m right here. I’ll help you, always. I’ll be your sunshine when it’s dark.
[Rowan] Thank you for still fighting for me. Thank you for never giving up on me.
[Roo the Poet] I won’t ever give up on you, Rowan. You’re my best friend. And I’ll always be here. You’re stronger than you know. And you’re never, ever alone.
[Rowan] I think I can start believing that. I think… I think I’ll be okay.
For those who feel these questions, this fire, and this search for self, my poem ‘I Am’ continues the journey—raw, unbound, and unafraid.
Poetry by Rowan Evans 