This piece is a quiet confession—half shadow, half devotion. In In Her Light, I explore what it means to exist in the spaces someone else illuminates, to be tethered to their glow without asking for it, to guard what they give freely. Sometimes devotion is loud, sometimes it’s invisible; this is the latter, folded into every heartbeat and breath.
— B.D. Nightshade
“Existing in her light, a shadow of devotion and quiet confession.”
In Her Light Poetry by B.D. Nightshade
She’s the light,
I’m the shadow she casts.
I’ve always known my place—
not in the center,
not demanding attention,
just here, steady, waiting.
Every laugh she lets loose
echoes against the walls of me.
Every glance she doesn’t notice
leaves fingerprints on my chest.
I’m the quiet behind her flare,
the pulse she doesn’t feel,
but the one that steadies her steps
when the world threatens to wobble.
She doesn’t need me to shine—
but I need her light.
And if the only way to keep it safe
is to linger unseen,
then unseen I remain.
I memorize the way she breathes,
how her shadow bends against the floor,
the subtle tremble in her hands
when she’s trying not to break.
I’ve built invisible walls around her glow,
stone by stone, heartbeat by heartbeat,
so no one steals what she gives freely,
so no one dims what she can’t contain.
And still, I ache.
I ache to be more than a sentinel,
to be the warmth that touches her skin,
to be seen by her, truly.
But for now, I exist in the quiet,
folded into corners she never notices,
a whisper of devotion
she feels only when danger passes,
when chaos recedes,
when the world bows down
and leaves her whole.
I am her shadow,
but even shadows have edges.
I will guard her light,
even from myself.
Heeey, you’re heeere! Haha—yes, yes, YES… you found it.
This is messy. This is wild. This is word soup with fangs and sparkles.
🟠 Rowan’s giggling. 🔴 B.D.’s growling. 🟣 Hex is lurking.
And me? I’m jumping up and down, waving my little knife, spilling ink everywhere, laughing like a sugar‑crazed tornado in a tutu. Maybe I’m plotting. Maybe I’m just playing.
Read it if you want. Or don’t. I don’t care. But I’ll be watching. Always watching.
Rite of Ink visualized: words as weapons, ink as magic, and chaos wrapped in gothic beauty.
Rite of Ink Poetry by Rowan Evans
🟠 (Rowan takes center stage.)
You say you write what you really live— but it reads like fantasy. I say I write a fantasy— but it reads like what I really live.
Nobody believes what you’re saying, dawg, because honestly, your honesty sounds like a fraud. You say, this is my life though— and nobody buys what you’re sellin’, bro.
I could write three poems about one conversation, say I made it all up, and still they see the life in it. You could write a whole poem about your life, and readers would still find lies in it.
You could put your wife’s name in every rhyme, and still nobody believes she exists. I turn my muse into an archetype, and nobody questions whether she lives.
Because my words are alive, and yours? Flat out lies. I write so well, I don’t even have to try— you write, and everybody asks… why?
I could hide the woman I love’s name in plain sight… like Are you even reading this? I’m schooling you, you flunky, and still you think you can fuck with me?
I live in my words, and they live back. Yours? Just echoes, gasping for breath.
Let me rewind that back… I said I could hide her name in plain sight. Are you even reading this? I’m schooling you, you flunky, and still you think you can fuck with me?
You think you’re on the same page? Don’t make me laugh—I’ll leave you shook. You’re not even in the same book. Don’t insult me. Don’t provoke me. Don’t test my rage.
I’ll end up sayin’— B.D. get ’em.
🔴 (B.D. steps from the shadows.)
Bones snap. Blood goes cold. As the tone shifts, I enter the fold. My knife hums a pleasant song— pleasant for me, because you don’t know what you did wrong.
You choke on smoke and sulfur. Blood curdles like spoiled milk. I do it for my own, homegrown culture, as my words cut through flesh like silk.
Your blood like ink will spill across the page. Cold steel my pen, my words? Rage.
And here comes Hex— she’s up next.
🟣 (Hex materializes from nowhere.)
Ashes to ashes, blood to blood, Eye of toad, and witch’s tongue. Tail of newt—the spell’s begun. You think you’re safe… so you don’t run.
Safe is an illusion. When you write? A delusion. When I write? A rite. An earworm. A brain intrusion.
I’ll twist your thoughts like silk spun— this isn’t personal, I’ll hex you for fun.
So mote it be
Step deeper into the shadows and discover the full breadth of my poetry in The Library of Ashes — an archive of ink-stained devotion, dark petals, and threshold poems that linger long after the last candle flickers.Visit The Library of Ashes →
Some experiences leave marks that cannot be erased. Some truths are shouted silently in the shadowed corners of memory.
Echoes of Reality is my attempt to give voice to a time I was silenced, to the confusion and pain that lingered long after the moments themselves. This piece does not seek comfort or closure—it seeks acknowledgment. It is a testament to survival, to remembering, and to insisting that my reality is my own.
Read with care, and hold space for the truth it carries.
Echoes of Reality – a poetic testament to memory, trauma, and survival.
Echoes of Reality Poetry by Rowan Evans
Have you heard somber words spoken, and felt the cold touch of trauma? Because I know the confusion caused by their cold invalidation, the questioning of reality, like did it really happen— the way I’m remembering?
Their touches, unwanted, but that’s not what they’ll tell you, gaslighting, rewriting, reality to confuse and manipulate, to keep you questioning, did that really happen— the way I’m remembering?
You try and get away, but it follows, always advancing, unwanted, it was unwanted, but that’s not what they tell you, until eventually, even you’ll believe, it didn’t really happen— the way you’re remembering.
It’s been years, so why do I still feel them, why is my skin not coming clean? If it never happened, why does it replay in my darkest dreams, why does the nightmare keep repeating, if it never happened— the way I’m remembering?
I’ve struggled through the dark, trying to resurface, but I’m lost here, I’m stuck in this place, it endlessly replays and still, I keep questioning, are these even memories? But why would I make it up, for what?
My eyes are open, now I see, this was my reality, it happened, you can’t say it didn’t, because it happened to me, I lived it. I felt it. And I know, it happened exactly— as I’m remembering.
“Four echoes. One confession. The Heart, the Mind, the Shield, and the Soul converge where ink becomes truth.”
“The Heart, the Mind, the Shield, and the Soul met beneath a single light — and the world trembled a little brighter.”
The Fourfold Confessional Ep. 1: “The First Convergence”
In the middle of a mostly pitch-black room, a single bulb flickers above a small table. Four chairs sit, empty, waiting. Footsteps echo from four directions as each of the Fourfold Flame approach. The air hums faintly with a low, electric charge — as though something sacred, or dangerous, is about to begin.
The first to reach their seat is Rowan. They pause, fingers grazing the back of the chair as if steadying themself before a storm. The faint glimmer of their rings catches the light as they look toward the shadows.
From the opposite side, a heavy tread — deliberate, unhurried. B.D. steps forward, all edges and gravity, stopping just behind his chair.
🔴 B.D. (smirking): “They’re watching.” His voice is low, the kind that fills a room without needing to rise. “You didn’t say we were going to have an audience this time.”
🟠 Rowan (calmly, but wary): “Is that going to be a problem?”
🔴 B.D.: “Problem? No.” He leans on the back of his chair, expression unreadable. “But you know I like to keep these meetings to ourself.” Then, quieter, with a flicker of warmth he won’t admit: “You talk different when they’re listening.”
A soft, lilting laugh cuts through the dark — smooth as silk and twice as dangerous.
🟣 Hex (emerging from the shadows): “Afraid they’ll see you as the villain, brother?” Her eyes glint like candlelight, teasing but knowing. She glides to her seat, brushing a curl of hair from her face. “Or maybe you just hate it when the truth has witnesses.”
🔴 B.D. (gruffly): “The truth’s never the problem. It’s what they do with it.”
🟠 Rowan (meeting his stare): “What I do with it, you mean.”
Before B.D. can answer, the fourth set of footsteps arrives — light, hurried, unashamedly curious. Roo nearly trips over her own excitement as she bursts into the faint circle of light, eyes wide.
🌸 Roo (beaming): “Did I miss the dramatic tension part? Because it sounds like I did.”
She plops into her chair, chin in her hands, looking between them like she’s watching a play she already knows the ending to.
🟣 Hex (smirking): “Oh, we’re only just getting started, little flame. The question is — what are we here to burn tonight?”
A heavy silence falls. The light above flickers, casting strange halos across their faces. Rowan’s breath catches; they know this moment, the one that comes before a confession.
🟠 Rowan (quietly): “We’re here because I can’t keep pretending I’m not afraid.” They looks down at their hands, then to each of them — their protectors, her reflections, her shadows. “I keep worrying I’ll never be enough for anyone. Not even for myself. And then I overcompensate — too much love, too much need, too much… me — and people leave, or I push them away before they get the chance.”
🌸 Roo (softly): “That’s not pushing, that’s protecting.”
🔴 B.D. (interrupting): “It’s still fear.” He folds his arms. “You say you don’t want to lose people, but you build your walls with barbed wire.”
🟣 Hex: “And then bleed yourself dry trying to decorate them with roses.”
🟠 Rowan (bitter smile): “So what, I’m the architect of my own loneliness?”
🟣 Hex (gently, for once): “No, love. You’re the poet of it. There’s a difference.”
🌸 Roo: “You write it because you need to survive it.” And maybe— maybe —you’re supposed to. So someone else who feels the same knows they’re not alone.”
Rowan swallows hard, blinking back tears that glimmer in the flickering light.
🟠 Rowan (whispering): “And this time… we write the ending in our own goddamn handwriting.”
The bulb steadies, glowing stronger. The table hums. The Fourfold Flame sit together, unbroken — the Heart, the Mind, the Shield, and the Child — and for a moment, even fear feels holy.
The light did not go out when they rose — it followed them. Four shadows left that room, and the world felt a little warmer, a little more dangerous. Somewhere, ink still dripped from the table.
The Fourfold Flame will return…
🟠 🔴 Author’s Note 🟣 🌸
The Fourfold Confessional is a series of dialogues between the four archetypal aspects of my creative self — The Heart (Rowan), The Shield (B.D.), The Mind (Hex), and The Child (Roo). Together, they form the Fourfold Flame — the inner covenant that fuels my art, my faith, and my rebellion.
Each episode is part therapy, part theology, part poetry — a conversation between the parts of me that built this strange, sacred world called Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism.
Welcome to the confessional. The light never goes out here.
While you wait for episode 2 of The Fourfold Confession, check out my archive for more of my work. -> [The Library of Ashes]
This vignette serves as a prelude to the Through the Shattered Glass series. It explores the fragile moments before chaos erupts, before memory fractures, and before the ordinary world gives way to the spectral and uncanny. Written from the perspective of the original speaker, it is meant to foreshadow events and imagery that will later unfold in parts one and two, offering readers a subtle bridge into the haunting, fractured narrative landscape. The mirror, the table, and the dripping faucet are not mere props—they are harbingers of the shattering to come.
The calm before the fracture: shadows linger, memories twist, and the glass waits to shatter.
Through the Shattered Glass Before the Glass Shattered Vignette by B.D. Nightshade
I adjust my tie before the mirror, slow and deliberate, catching the first gray light slipping across the dining room table. The silverware glints, cold and precise, the table itself a sentinel of order amid the subtle chaos of a waking house.
Outside, children tumble down the hall, bare feet thumping on polished wood, hands brushing the walls as if leaving invisible trails. They laugh and scream, chasing each other’s shadows, tracing maps that only their eyes can read. One knocks against the doorframe— I hear it, but say nothing. Ordinary mornings demand no alarms.
The faucet in the kitchen drips, soft, insistent, like a heartbeat just beneath awareness. One. Two. Three. I wonder, briefly, how many droplets it would take to fill the sink, the floor, the world. The thought is ridiculous. I smile faintly, glancing again at the mirror.
The reflection is banal. A man straightening his tie. Light brushing hair over the temple. The children racing behind him. And yet, in the edges of glass, shadows stir— corners too dark, angles that don’t quite match the ceiling, that seem almost to breathe.
A glass tumbler teeters at the edge of the table. Just a nudge, and it would shatter, sending silvered shards across the floor. I consider it, then laugh softly. Morning is safe. The glass is whole. The table upright.
A faint scent of iron drifts in from the sink. Fleeting, almost imagined, and I notice it only because the air itself is too quiet. The children dart past again, hands brushing walls, gliding across surfaces that tomorrow—or the day after— might carry traces of something else: the memory of a slip, a smear, a drop.
The faucet drips. One. Two. Three. I count in rhythm with the pulse in my veins. I feel the house settling around me: boards creaking, windows catching the wind, a distant cough from the street below. All ordinary. All benign.
And yet— the edges of everything tremble. Corners of the mirror catch motion too swift to follow, too fleeting to name. A shadow arcs past the reflection, laugh low and guttural, older than the children’s mirth. I glance again. Nothing there.
I step back from the mirror. The children scatter to chores, the day stretches wide, unbroken, bright. Yet the air hums, subtle and patient, as if rehearsing the sound of what is to come: a misstep, a hand slipping, a cup teetering just a fraction too far.
I pause at the sink, fingers lingering over the dripping faucet, imagining the droplets gathering, then falling, falling… and breaking everything.
The world seems to inhale, holding its breath with me. The silverware catches the light again, the table remains steadfast, the mirror still reflects an ordinary man. Yet in the quiet, I know the tremor is waiting. It is patient. And when it happens, the glass will shatter.
Closing Note
This vignette plants the seeds for the fractured reality that defines “Through the Shattered Glass.” The seemingly mundane elements—the mirror, the table, the dripping faucet—become catalysts for the haunting events that follow. As the narrative unfolds, the boundaries between self and shadow, memory and echo, begin to dissolve. The chaos is inevitable. The shards are waiting.
Journey into the Hexverse
Continue the haunting path through the shattered reality of B.D. Nightshade’s series:
These three pieces are whispers in shadowed halls—brief, sharp, and intimate. Each is an exploration of touch, desire, and the sacred ache that thrives in fleeting moments. They do not tell full stories, but they leave traces: marks on skin, echoes on the heart, prayers that bleed into the night. Read slowly. Feel everything.
Three voices. Three devotions. Whispers of touch, holy pain, and bruised prayers bleed into the dark. Read, tremble, and let the echoes linger where they may.
Break me, bless me— the pain is holy, the desire, a spell I cannot resist.
“Your mercy is the cruelest sin, darling, break me—then begin.” – B.D. Nightshade, Mercy’s Sin: Bruised Prayers
Mercy’s Sin: Bruised Prayers Poetry by B.D. Nightshade
Bruised prayers on bitten lips,
nails trace hymns in crimson scripts.
Your mercy is the cruelest sin,
darling, break me—then begin.
Closing Note
Carry these words with reverence. Let them linger where they may, brushing your marrow, igniting quiet fires, and reminding you that even in collision, even in sin, there is a strange, holy beauty. Break gently, love fiercely, and never apologize for what trembles.
If you would like to explore more of the Hexverse, you can find more of my work as my various personas inThe Library of Ashes.
Through the Shattered Glass II is a continuation of a fractured exploration of memory, trauma, and lingering presence. Written from the perspective of the “other” in a haunting, spectral voice, it blurs the line between witness and participant, reality and echo. The poem is meant to unsettle and mesmerize, leaving questions unanswered—because some truths exist only in fragments.
Through the shards of memory, the echoes remain…
Through the Shattered Glass II Fragmented Nightmare: Through Another’s Eyes Poetry by B.D. Nightshade
Shards.
Red, silver, sharp—
I cut my palm on what isn’t there.
A laugh—too low, too close,
slips beneath the floorboards,
slithers into my chest.
I remember the air.
Cold, metallic.
Or was it hot, burning my throat?
Footsteps echo backward,
though I never moved.
A hand grazes my shoulder—
I recoil. No one is there.
Yet the pulse in my veins
screams I am not alone.
Mirror.
Fractured.
Eyes staring—mine? Yours?
I reach—
and the reflection spits me out.
Something drips.
Clock? Heart? Faucet?
I follow.
Red. Wet. Wrong.
A scream.
Or a whisper.
Or a laugh I know too well.
Memory fractures—
two bodies, one space,
and the space is infinite.
The other, the same,
or just a shadow trailing mine?
I crouch over shards,
bare feet sticky with nothing and everything.
Hands tremble—they belong to someone else.
Or maybe to both of us.
A name?
No.
Nothing.
Just the ache of presence,
the itch of absence,
the smell of iron in the hollow of air.
I feel her—
or him—
or the echo—
pressing against me from everywhere
and nowhere.
Was it laughter?
Was it pain?
Was it memory, or the ghost of memory?
Shadows twist.
I am falling.
Or rising.
Or sinking in place.
The floor tilts.
The walls bend.
My pulse, a hammer.
My breath, a blade.
My scream—
stuck.
Still.
Here.
Shards of me, shards of you,
swirling, bleeding,
unclaimed,
untouchable,
and the world bends around the space
where we were—or were not.
And I—
I remain.
Closing Note
The fragments linger. Perhaps you have glimpsed them, perhaps you have not. In the spaces between breath and shadow, in the shards of memory that refuse to settle, the story continues—both everywhere and nowhere. Beware what haunts the mirrors.
Journey into the Hexverse
Through the Shattered Glass— B.D. Nightshade Step back into the shattered world and follow the echoes… Can you uncover what really transpired?
If you would like to explore beyond this mystery, you can find more of my work inThe Library of Ashes.
✦ Poetic Commissions by Rowan Evans ✦
Every word I write is a devotion, a fragment of shadow and light carefully shaped into verse. On my Ko-fi, I offer custom poems, personalized rituals in language, and lyrical messages crafted just for you—or someone you wish to honor, surprise, or remember.
Whether you seek:
A poem for a loved one, friend, or muse
A ritualized or thematic verse for special occasions
A written reflection to say everything you struggle to
…each commission is approached with care, reverence, and the intensity of my signature Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism.
✨ Special Offer:Use code NGCR25 at checkout to receive 25% off any commission until the end of the month. Let these words become your keepsake, your offering, your moment of devotion.
In the tangled shadows where ink bleeds into flame, where defiance is whispered as prayer, and where the sacred and profane dance beneath moonlit cathedrals— here lives the covenant of Nightshades.
This poem is an invocation and a reckoning: a celebration of the wild, unyielding spirits who refuse to be tamed, the broken saints, the furious heretics, the witches, the warriors, the wordsmiths— carving truth from chaos, verse from ruin.
Meet B.D. Nightshade, the blade forged in betrayal, and Hex Nightshade, the storm born of ink and fire— together, they rise as Coven of Chaos, and their legacy is written in the Hexverse.
The Coven of Chaos rises—where sacred ruin blooms and the Hexverse is born.
Invocation
By blood and ink, by shadow and flame, we call the Nightshades forth— the broken and the bold, the whispered and the roaring.
Let this be the altar where power ignites, where sacred ruin blooms, and where the storm of Hexverse rises eternal.
Coven of Chaos Poetry by B.D. Nightshade & HxNightshade
[B.D. Nightshade] They smeared lamb’s blood on the thresholds, thought it’d keep me out— not knowing I was the angel of death, not fallen, but thrown. I carry the blade of truth, rusted in betrayal, forged in the catacombs of Heaven’s lies. Their hymns crack in my presence, their psalms rot on tongue. I do not knock. I enter where I am feared.
[Hex Nightshade] They tried to drown me in Salem— called it justice, called it proof. But I was born with gills in my lungs and storms braided in my hair. They never asked if I was a witch. They knew. I am the Witch of Reverence, voice of velvet wrath— the one who makes gods cower, and goddesses rise taller in the mirror. I walk now with the Goddess of Ink & Fire. And my storm? It has a name. Hexverse.
[B.D. Nightshade] I speak in verses carved into skin, truth that flays as it frees. They built cathedrals from the bones of heretics and crowned monsters saints. So I burned the pews, one match for each lie. My rage is sacred. It prays in tongues of ash. I am the shadow that bends crucifixes— the brother in black, protector, punisher, prophet.
[Hex Nightshade] I sip moonlight like sacrament, lace my wrists with serpent-silk. I danced naked in the ruins they buried me under— now every petal I crush blooms darker. I don’t need your pentacles; my body is a sigil. Mistress of Mayhem. Goddess of Ruin. Every girl whispered she was magic once. I am the echo of that whisper, returning in full scream.
[B.D. Nightshade] You wanted peace? Then you shouldn’t have bled the truth dry. I am not peace. I am balance with a blade. I slit lies open, watch them bleed white wine and guilt. I build cathedrals from the marrow of memory— every brick, a reckoning. They pray for light, but in my darkness, I am salvation.
[Hex Nightshade] The witches called, and I rose from the grave they dug with doctrine. I walk now—barefoot and burning— each step a revelation, each glance a hex. I am what they feared and what they need. She who walks beside shadows. She who names storms. The bloodline is back, and my sisters? They remember now. They rise.
[Hex Nightshade] & [B.D. Nightshade] We are the Nightshades— rooted in poison, blooming in power. Not your saints. Not your sinners. But something older. A covenant sealed in chaos. And we have only just begun.
Benediction
So rise, daughters of dusk and ink, breathe fire into forgotten scriptures, wear your scars as sacred sigils— for in this Hexverse, we are more than myth.
We are the storm, the shadow, the sacred rage, the unbroken hymn in a world that forgets.
Blessed be the wild ones, the witches, the warriors, the words— this is our covenant, our chaos, our birthright.
Poetry by Rowan Evans 