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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: dark humor poetry

  • Funeral for a Thirty-Six-Year-Old | A Gothic Birthday Poem by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem is a birthday rite, not a reckoning.

    I’ve always treated birthdays less like milestones and more like ceremonial thresholds—moments to shed a skin, laugh at the ghosts behind me, and step forward with intention. Funeral for a Thirty-Six-Year-Old isn’t about mourning age; it’s about staging its death so something sharper, freer, and more self-aware can take its place.

    Thirty-six feels less like getting older and more like arriving. I’m no longer interested in quiet gratitude or graceful humility—I wanted pageantry, drama, and a little irreverence. This piece is me honoring survival with style, embracing the absurdity of time, and celebrating the fact that I’m still here, still dangerous, still writing.

    If this is a funeral, it’s one where the guest of honor very much refuses to stay dead.

    A gothic figure rising from a velvet coffin in a moonlit mausoleum, symbolizing a theatrical celebration of turning thirty-six.
    Thirty-six isn’t an ending—it’s a resurrection with better lighting.

    Funeral for a Thirty-Six-Year-Old
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I rise from my velvet coffin,
    for birthdays are sacred rituals of vanity,
    thirty-six too perfect for a quiet exit.

    Cobwebs kiss my ankles
    as I stride the mausoleum of my life,
    counting skeletons I’ve danced with
    and candles I’ve lit in the name of style.

    The moon winks at me through shattered panes,
    celestial bodies admire
    a drama queen in full bloom—
    not wilted, not weary, theatrically immortal.

    I sip absinthe from a skull-shaped chalice,
    grinning at the reaper waiting impatiently,
    his scythe tapping to the rhythm of my heartbeat—
    shrug. He’s never been my type.

    Mirrors whisper secrets of my youthful decay,
    I laugh—lines are suggestions,
    wrinkles invitations to flair,
    every grey hair a medal for surviving
    without losing my mind… entirely.

    Birthday cake, molten lava,
    frosted with sarcasm, glittering regrets.
    I devour it with a ceremonial fork,
    toasting myself—
    who else deserves this gothic pageantry?

    The clock ticks, and I bow to time,
    not in surrender, but in acknowledgment:
    I am older, wiser, and infinitely more unhinged.
    let the world tremble at my theatricality—
    I have arrived.

    Candles gutter. Shadows shiver.
    In the mirror’s reflection, I wink—
    thirty-six has never looked this dangerous,
    this decadent, this deliciously insane.

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

  • Letters to Heaven (Return to Sender) | Neo-Gothic Confessional Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    ✒️ Author’s Note

    This poem began as a joke, but like most of my writing, the joke carried a confession inside it. Letters to Heaven (Return to Sender) is about doubt, disappointment, and the absurdity of trying to speak to a God who may not be listening. It’s blasphemous, yes, but also tender in its own crooked way—a reminder that sometimes laughter is the only prayer we have left.

    Surreal gothic image of a burning letter rising into smoke, with cathedral spires fading in the shadows.
    “Some prayers never reach their destination.”

    Letters to Heaven (Return to Sender)
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I used to talk to God,
    but he turned his back on me.
    I probably deserved it,
    for what? I don’t know exactly.
    Could be
    I’m a heathen, maybe?

    Now I don’t talk much,
    anxiety has me all fucked up.
    So I write letters to the Heavens,
    but I write the address
    too sloppily.

    I used to talk to God,
    but now I’m not sure I believe—
    so I write letters to Santa instead,
    but I’m dyslexic so all my mail
    ends up where I’m headed.

    If this didn’t hit, don’t walk away yet. My work shifts shapes—you’ll find your reflection somewhere in The Library of Ashes. And if nothing I’ve posted fits you now, keep checking back; you’ll see yourself in the ink soon enough.