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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: becoming

  • Distant Shores | A Poem About Longing, Growth, and Becoming

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem came from a recurring dream and a familiar pull — the quiet urge to move toward something that feels meaningful, even if the destination isn’t fully defined yet. It isn’t about a place so much as the feeling of possibility, of momentum returning, of wanting to grow into someone worthy of the journey ahead.

    Some shores are literal.
    Some are emotional.
    Some only exist because someone made you believe they might.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary figure standing on a quiet shoreline at dawn, looking out toward distant waves and a glowing horizon.
    Some journeys begin long before you ever leave—when the shore starts calling you back to yourself.

    Distant Shores
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    It’s kind of wild how,
    you’ve been in my dreams
    for a while now.

    You’re always radiant as ever,
    you look like heaven—but better.
    You inspire every poem, word and letter,
    I write them with love, respect and care.
    If I could, I would always be there—

    I swear
    I will cross oceans,
    whether I catch a jet,
    swim or stowaway.
    I swear
    I will cross these waves,
    and we will walk the same shore
    some day.
    I swear—

    You make me, want to be
    a better me.
    To strive for more,
    instead of giving up
    like I had before.
    I had allowed myself
    to become trapped,
    inside the borders
    of my mind and
    country.

    You added fuel to a fire
    that had been silently burning.
    Right there, inside my chest.
    The embers smoldered in silence,
    until you, and the fire reignited—
    and now it roars.

    Once again, I dream of walking
    distant shores. But now…
    Now, I want them to be…

    Yours.

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

    Journey into the Hexverse

    [Toward Somewhere I Can Breathe]
    A poem about feeling disconnected since fourteen, longing for somewhere that feels like home, and finally understanding that the journey isn’t about escape — it’s about alignment.

    [Disconnected Since Fourteen]
    A confessional poem about growing up disconnected—from place, from home, from belonging—and the quiet realization that the signal was never stable to begin with.

    [Still Tilting Elsewhere]
    A reflection on growing up with a compass that never pointed home—tracing the quiet rebellion of longing, the patience of dreams, and the feeling of always being angled toward somewhere else.

  • Still Tilting Elsewhere | A Poem About Leaving, Longing, and Becoming

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some people grow up knowing exactly where they belong.
    Others grow up carrying a quiet sense of elsewhere—something felt long before it’s understood.

    This piece traces that feeling as it moved through me over time: the early moments of disconnection, the private planning, the slow patience of a dream that never burned out. It isn’t about leaving a place as much as it is about realizing that orientation matters more than arrival.

    Not all rebellions are loud.
    Some of them are lived quietly, for years, while you learn how to wait without letting the dream die.

    A person standing at dusk, facing a distant horizon with a compass motif in the sky, symbolizing longing and the pull toward somewhere else.
    Some dreams don’t disappear.
    They learn how to wait.

    Still Tilting Elsewhere
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I find myself
    drifting through my thoughts,
    not lost this time.

    I remember fourteen.
    Hi Hi Puffy—
    Ami and Yumi on the screen,
    seeing Tokyo streets,
    thinking “I hate this place.”
    It was the first time
    I felt the disconnect.

    Suddenly,
    I was hyperaware—
    I didn’t belong here.

    I remember fifteen.
    The first time
    I started planning.
    The first time
    I dreamed of jet engines,
    of taking off,
    making escape.

    I remember sixteen.
    Started speaking,
    manifesting—
    wishing it into existence.
    I remember seventeen,
    when my dream,
    became a quiet rebellion.

    And I was
    only becoming
    more aware,
    I didn’t belong here.

    I remember eighteen.
    Applying for a job,
    I knew I wouldn’t get.
    Simply for the chance to split.
    It was more about the “what if’s,”
    what if they saw something—
    what if they took a chance?

    And then—
    found family
    from the Philippines.
    Two girls of thirteen,
    they became like nieces to me.
    They were the spark
    that stoked the ember,
    that would simmer
    just beneath the surface.

    It’s been
    eighteen years
    since then.

    Eighteen years,
    and the ember never cooled.
    It lived in the quiet places—
    behind decisions,
    beneath routines,
    inside every map I drew
    that didn’t include here.

    And the dream didn’t fade.
    It learned patience.
    It learned silence.
    It learned to wait
    without dying.

    Now,
    I feel the shift again—
    the same quiet pull,
    the same soft rebellion,
    older now,
    but no less certain.

    I still carry that fourteen-year-old
    like a compass in my chest.
    I carry that seventeen-year-old
    like a promise I haven’t kept yet.
    I’ve grown,
    but the compass never changed.
    Every version of me
    still tilts toward somewhere…
    else.

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

  • Loki: A Poem About Transformation, Chaos, and the Norse Trickster God

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    I wrote Loki on March 1st, 2025, not as a tribute to the pop-culture trickster, but to the old god—the one who exists in contradiction, liminality, and transformation. The Loki of myth is not tidy. He is not easily moralized. He is fire and fracture, ally and adversary, mother and monster, savior and destroyer. He is becoming.

    This poem is less about mythology as history and more about mythology as mirror. Loki has always represented what unsettles systems built on rigidity: fluidity, change, refusal. In many ways, he is the god of those who do not fit neatly into the halls they are born into. Those who are renamed as “problem” when what they truly are is uncontainable.

    Writing this was an act of reclamation. Of honoring the sacredness of contradiction. Of recognizing that to shift, to change, to refuse a single shape, is not betrayal—it is divinity in motion.

    A mystical, shapeshifting figure surrounded by fire and shadow, evoking the Norse god Loki and the power of transformation.
    Not bound by name. Not fixed in form. Becoming is the divine act.

    Loki
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I have been son and mother, father and daughter,
    A whisper on the wind, a fire in the dark.
    I have been the tempest and the calm,
    A shifting shape, a name unchained.

    I was never made to fit in their halls,
    So they twisted my name into a curse.
    They carved my legacy with hands that feared
    What could not be tamed, what would not kneel.

    They call me trickster, traitor, monster—
    But what is a god if not a story rewritten?
    What is truth when bound by mortal tongues,
    When my form is fluid as the rivers they drink?

    I have worn every face, walked every path,
    Yet still, they wish to bind me to one.
    But I am the echo of change, the chaos of fate,
    A dance between dusk and dawn.

    Try as they might to paint me still,
    I will slip through cracks, through time, through names.
    For I am not one, nor two—
    I am all, I am none…

    I am Loki.

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

  • “To the Ones Who Feel Like Ghosts” — A Poignant Poem on Healing, Hope, and Becoming

    Rowan Evans
    Cover image for the poem ‘To the Ones Who Feel Like Ghosts’ by Shiann. A silhouette of a person in a dark cloak stands against a glowing ocean backdrop, surrounded by soft light. The title and subtitle are written above in gothic font, with the name 'Shiann' across the figure and 'Rowan Evans' credited in the corner.
    For the souls who are still here, even when it hurts.

    🕯️ Featured Guest Poem
    ✨ For the souls who are still here, even when it hurts.

    Some poems arrive like lifelines—woven from truth, pain, grace, and the quiet strength of survival. They don’t offer easy answers, but they do offer space. Space to feel. To breathe. To be reminded that healing is messy, nonlinear, and still… deeply sacred.

    “To the Ones Who Feel Like Ghosts” by Shiann is exactly that kind of poem.

    “I wrote it with the intention to give some kind of guidance, space and hope,” Shiann said. “Because being someone who suffers from mental health issues and trauma, I know how easy it is to get lost when trying to heal. It’s hard, and it can feel like there’s a veil covering the eyes of the soul. But healing doesn’t always have to be painful—it just needs to be honest. And when it’s honest, it’s done with grace.”

    This poem is a sanctuary for anyone who’s ever wondered if they’re too far gone to be found again.
    It’s a reminder that even in the dark, even when we feel like ghosts in our own lives—
    we are still becoming.

    I am deeply honored to feature this as the first-ever guest poem on my blog.
    Let it meet you wherever you are. Let it be a soft place to land.

    “To the Ones Who Feel Like Ghosts”
    for the souls who are still here, even when it hurts

    If you’re reading this with tired eyes,
    barely holding on,
    wondering if the road even leads anywhere—
    this is for you.

    For the ones who feel like life keeps happening
    to them
    instead of with them.
    For the ones who keep giving love
    and getting silence in return.
    For the ones who wake up
    and already feel behind.

    You are not broken.
    You are becoming.

    I know it feels like you’re crumbling.
    Like everything you touch slips through your fingers
    and every breath tastes like defeat.
    But listen closely:

    Some things fall apart
    because they were never meant to hold your becoming.
    You were not made to stay small
    just to make others comfortable.
    You were not made to disappear
    just to survive.

    Your mess does not cancel your magic.
    Your doubt does not erase your worth.
    You can feel lost
    and still be on your path.

    You don’t need to have it all figured out.
    You don’t need to feel good all the time.
    You don’t even need to know where you’re going.
    You just need to keep going.

    Because there is a version of you waiting—
    not perfect, not fixed—
    but free.
    Free from shame.
    Free from the lie that healing must be fast or pretty.
    Free to speak gently to the parts of yourself
    that never heard a kind word.

    So take your time.
    Cry if you need to.
    Start over as many times as it takes.

    Just don’t stop being you.
    Even if you don’t know who that is yet.

    There is peace here,
    not in perfection—
    but in presence.
    In letting yourself exist
    exactly as you are.

    So breathe.
    Rest.
    Begin again.

    You’re not alone.
    And you’re not lost.
    You’re just on your way home.

    🇺🇸 United States

    988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – Call or text 988
    https://988lifeline.org
    Free, 24/7 support for emotional distress and mental health crises.

    Crisis Text Line – Text HOME to 741741
    https://www.crisistextline.org

    —

    🇬🇧 United Kingdom

    Samaritans – Call 116 123 (free, 24/7)
    https://www.samaritans.org

    —

    🇦🇺 Australia

    Lifeline Australia – Call 13 11 14
    https://www.lifeline.org.au

    Kids Helpline (ages 5–25) – Call 1800 55 1800
    https://www.kidshelpline.com.au

    —

    🇨🇦 Canada

    Talk Suicide Canada – Call 1-833-456-4566 or text 45645
    https://talksuicide.ca

    —

    🇵🇭 Philippines

    Hopeline Philippines
    Call: 0917 558 4673, (02) 8804 4673, or 2919 (toll-free for Globe & TM)
    https://www.hopelineph.com

    —

    🌍 Global

    Befrienders Worldwide – Emotional support in 30+ countries
    https://www.befrienders.org

    Suicide Prevention Wiki (International Hotline Directory)
    https://suicidestop.com/call_a_hotline.html

    If this poem spoke to you, know you’re not alone on your journey. Healing is not a race or a destination, but a series of moments where grace meets courage. May Shiann’s words remind you to breathe, to rest, and to keep moving forward—one step, one breath, one honest moment at a time.

    Thank you for sharing this space with us.

    With respect and gratitude,
    — Rowan Evans
    The Luminous Heretic

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