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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: cultural identity

  • Slim & Shady X: Bloodline & Ashes – Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece is born from anger, from frustration, and from the long ache of being rootless in a nation that demands assimilation while erasing everything else. Bloodline & Ashes is me tearing through the lies of “American culture,” the sanitized history fed to us, and the violence hidden behind flags and fireworks. It’s a reclamation of voice—for the erased, the silenced, the forgotten. Every line is a hammer, every rhyme a torch, and every syllable a refusal to kneel to hollow traditions. This is not just poetry; it’s bloodline and fire, forged into truth.

    A fiery throne of ashes with ghostly silhouettes, symbolizing erased ancestors and reclaimed bloodline.
    “From ashes and silence, a voice rises—bloodline reclaimed, truth ignited.”

    Slim & Shady X: Bloodline & Ashes
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Man, they say—“Remember where you came from,”
    I say, fuck that, I’m diggin’ through the marrow, the numb.
    Books lied, TV lied, history sanitized,
    Whitewashed heroes built on bodies they despised.

    America? That’s a facade, a plastic masquerade,
    Freedom sold in chains, in wars we never played.
    Your culture’s fast food, fireworks over graves,
    Pride wrapped in guns, in lies your teachers praise.

    I spit venom in the mirror of your “melting pot,”
    I see ghosts of ancestors, their stories forgot.
    Candles in temples, voices carried on air,
    I got the silence of a nation that don’t care.

    White skin ain’t a story, it’s a cage with bars,
    I’m built from forgotten names, the ghosts in the scars.
    You think pigment defines me? Nah, I redefine,
    Every vein a library, every heartbeat a shrine.

    You celebrate Columbus, I mourn what he stole,
    You cheer for your heroes, I spit for the soul.
    Every “freedom” you flaunt is stolen from the meek,
    Every star on your flag hides the blood on the street.

    I’m the rootless kid, pilgrim in my own skin,
    I walk through the fire where your “culture” begins.
    I craft rituals from rage, rewrite your fables,
    I’m the voice of the erased, the shadow in the tables.

    Slavery, genocide, erasure, repeat,
    Your “history” a lie, a sanitized deceit.
    I spit for the stolen, the silenced, the erased,
    I raise my fist for the lost, in fury and grace.

    I don’t kneel to your holidays, your hollow cheers,
    I spit for the ancestors erased by the years.
    I build my own temples from ashes and bones,
    Every verse a hammer, every bar a throne.

    I refuse your melting pot, your consumerist lies,
    I see through the glitter, the flags, the disguise.
    I am fire in the cold, blood in the concrete,
    I am truth in a land built on deceit.

    White? I am more, I am lineage unknown,
    I am the scream of the rootless, the fury I own.
    You sold me nothing but chains and confusion,
    I craft culture from silence, from anger, illusion.

    I spit internal rhymes, half-time, full rage,
    Every syllable a weapon, every line a cage.
    I spit fast as Ez Mil, raw as Shady at dawn,
    I tear down your monuments while the people yawn.

    Your “heroes” were villains, your history a crime,
    I flip every narrative, one bar at a time.
    I spit for the rootless, the unclaimed, the unseen,
    I am the bloodline reborn, the rage in between.

    I write my own epics, my own sacred lore,
    From the ashes of silence, from the pain I bore.
    I build from the ruins, I craft my own rite,
    I am the rootless, the forgotten, the light.

    I don’t need your holidays, your parades, your fake praise,
    I spit in your face, I set the silence ablaze.
    I am blood, I am bone, I am fire and steel,
    I am the storm in the calm, the wound that will heal.

    Every bar a confession, every line a war cry,
    I carry the ancestors you left to die.
    I spit for the voiceless, the erased, the unclaimed,
    I am the culture reborn, untamed, unashamed.

    I am history they forgot, I am blood they denied,
    I am the rootless rage, the truth they can’t hide.
    I am beyond skin, beyond the lies you tell,
    I am my own damn culture—and I wear it well.

    If you are interested in reading the whole series, find it here: The Slim & Shady Series

    And if you just want to read more of my work, you can find that here: The Library of Ashes

  • Drifting Without Roots: A Poem on Cultural Identity and Longing

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    I have been struggling with my lack of cultural identity for a long time. Growing up in the United States, I was told it was a “melting pot,” but it never felt that way. Instead, it seemed like people were forced to abandon their heritage in order to fit into an identity that doesn’t exist. When I ask what “American culture” is, the answers I hear are hamburgers, hot dogs, the 4th of July, and the military. None of that feels like culture to me—only consumerism and violence.

    I envy those who have songs, dances, rituals, languages, and stories passed down through generations. I don’t want to take anyone else’s story. I only want to feel the presence of my own. But too often I feel like a ghost wandering through borrowed traditions, searching for a home that doesn’t exist.

    This poem is my confession of that ache.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary figure holding a lantern, roots dissolving into mist, symbolizing cultural disconnection and longing.
    “Searching for roots in the fog of identity.”

    Invocation

    Come closer, reader—
    into the hollow where heritage should dwell.
    Hear the echo of silence,
    the yearning for roots that never took hold.
    Witness the ache of a soul
    adrift in a country that mistook conquest for culture,
    violence for pride.
    Step gently—
    this confession is not just grief,
    but a longing for home that has no name.

    Inheritance of Nothing
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I envy the ones
    whose blood carries stories—
    whose tongues remember
    what their ancestors sang
    in the shadow of temples,
    at the mouth of rivers.

    I watch their rituals unfold,
    candles passed from hand to hand,
    dances older than empires,
    words carved in a language
    I will never taste.
    And I ache—
    not because they have it,
    but because I don’t.

    What was left to me?
    Fast food wrapped in plastic,
    holidays gutted of holiness,
    flags worshipped instead of gods.
    I was taught to pledge allegiance
    to violence,
    to wars I never wanted,
    to victories built on graves.

    My culture is gunfire.
    My anthem is grief.
    My inheritance—
    silence where a song should be.

    I drift between borrowed myths,
    a pilgrim without a shrine,
    longing for a history
    that does not dissolve into slogans,
    or rot under the weight
    of conquest and forgetting.

    I do not want to steal another’s story.
    I only want to touch my own—
    to feel it burn in my chest,
    to know the names of my dead
    and what they carried for me.

    Instead, I stand at the threshold,
    watching others feast at a table
    laden with memory and meaning,
    while I starve on scraps
    of hamburgers and hot dogs—
    a parody of belonging.

    Tell me,
    how do I rise from soil
    that has no roots?
    How do I call myself home
    when my home was built
    on erasure?

    Benediction

    May those who carry deep roots
    cherish them with reverence.
    May those who wander rootless
    know they are not alone in the ache.
    And may we who inherit silence
    still find ways to sing—
    to build new rituals
    from longing,
    to craft belonging
    from the ruins.

    If you would like to check out more of my work, you can find it here… The Library of Ashes