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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: devotion

  • Not Rebuilding You | A Poem About Love, Trust, Healing, and Building Safe Foundations

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some poems arrive all at once.

    This one arrived in pieces.

    The opening came first—a joke, a banana peel, a little bit of wordplay and self-awareness. The speaker trips over their own feelings and tries to laugh about it before anyone notices.

    That’s fairly normal for me.

    Humor has always been one of the ways I approach vulnerability. Not because the feelings aren’t real, but because sometimes honesty becomes easier to hold when it’s carrying a joke.

    But somewhere during the writing process, the poem shifted.

    The focus stopped being the speaker’s feelings and became the person receiving them.

    Because love, at least the kind I’m interested in writing about, isn’t ownership.

    It isn’t rescue.

    It isn’t fixing someone.

    It’s creating safety.

    The construction imagery in the second half comes from that idea. The speaker isn’t trying to rebuild another person or erase their past. They’re trying to create something steady. Something reliable. A place where another person can set down their fears for a while and rest.

    That distinction matters to me.

    Too many love stories focus on saving someone.

    I’m more interested in what happens when you simply show up, consistently, and help build conditions where healing becomes possible.

    Brick by brick.

    Choice by choice.

    Day by day.

    The final lines grew from a belief I’ve carried for a long time:

    Everyone deserves a future that feels safe to stand inside.

    Everyone deserves foundations that don’t shake beneath them.

    And sometimes the greatest gift we can offer another person isn’t a promise to save them.

    It’s a promise to help build something that lasts.

    — Rowan Evans

    A new foundation being built beside old ruins at twilight, symbolizing healing, trust, and creating a safe future through love.
    Sometimes love isn’t about fixing what’s broken. Sometimes it’s about laying a foundation strong enough for someone to finally rest without fear of collapse. 🖤🧱✨

    Not Rebuilding You
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    It happened quick.
    I slipped—
    banana peel.
    But you can trust me,
    I think I’ve proven that, (huh?)
    so you know
    you can trust
    what I feel is real.

    From the fear
    to devotion,
    loyalty in motion—
    I try to give you no reason
    to question.

    And you don’t need
    to return this.
    This isn’t a library,
    no overdue charge—
    just a gift straight from my heart,
    that I give with purpose.

    And if you’re wondering
    why I give like this…

    You’re worth it.

    I’d move earth,
    shift dirt—
    excavate
    to stop the hurt.
    Prepare the land
    for a new foundation.

    So let me lay brick after brick,
    patience in every layer,
    hope in every line.
    Not rebuilding you—
    just building a place
    where you can finally rest
    without fear of collapse.

    And if it takes time,
    I’m not afraid of slow miracles—

    because love like this
    isn’t renovation—
    it’s resurrection.

    A clearing of old ruins,
    a promise carved into the earth:
    you deserve a future
    that doesn’t hurt to stand on.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [The Language Her Soul Speaks]
    What if love isn’t about being understood, but learning to understand someone else? “The Language Her Soul Speaks” is a free verse poem about intimacy, communication, curiosity, and the desire to know another person beyond the limits of language.

    [Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3)]
    A moonlit shoreline, a rowboat full of ducks, a piggybank with no cents, and a confession hidden in plain sight. Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3) explores how humor, wordplay, and absurdity can become a side door to vulnerability when the truth feels too difficult to say directly.

    [L Words & Heart]
    A playful, self-aware poem about love, longing, loyalty, and the quiet ways another person can reshape our inner world. What begins as humor slowly reveals a heartfelt confession about affection, imagination, and the faces that linger in our dreams.

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

  • L Words & Heart | A Poem About Love, Longing, Loyalty & Being Seen

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece began as a joke.

    Or at least, I thought it did.

    The opening voice is intentionally playful—awkward, self‑deprecating, a little chaotic, prone to wandering off into side comments before finding its way back again. In many ways, it feels closer to how I actually think than some of my more polished or serious pieces.

    But underneath the humor is something sincere.

    I’ve never been particularly good at saying important things directly. Sometimes vulnerability arrives disguised as a joke. Sometimes affection hides behind wordplay. Sometimes the safest way to admit what you’re feeling is to make someone laugh first.

    The title comes from a simple realization: when I think about certain people, my thoughts tend to orbit the same things.

    Love. Longing. Loyalty.

    The L words.

    And heart.

    The final section is intentionally quieter than everything that comes before it. The jokes fall away, the distractions disappear, and what remains is the truth the speaker was circling the entire time: the way another person can take up space in your imagination, your creativity, and your inner world long before they ever occupy the same physical space.

    Sometimes affection doesn’t arrive as grand declarations.

    Sometimes it arrives as a face that appears when you close your eyes.
    A voice you hear in silence.
    A shoreline you keep finding in your dreams.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary figure standing on a moonlit shoreline while waves roll in beneath a dreamy twilight sky.
    Some people arrive in your thoughts quietly—then somehow become part of every dream, every poem, and every beat of your heart.

    L Words & Heart
    Poetry by Rowan Evan

    I’m just a quirky, mother—
    not a fighter, but a lover.
    I’m not brave or whatever,
    I bite tongues,
    holding words like lips
    with padlocks.

    I’ve never been a fan of change,
    but I want things to change—
    I want my life rearranged,
    I want to be seen as normal
    not strange—
    I want to be me
    and accepted,
    because I’m not as strange
    as you think—
    I’ve seen Stranger Things.

    (Actually, no I haven’t.
    I never got into the show.
    But I digress…)

    I’ve got things I want to say,
    got things I want you to know.

    When I think about you
    it’s all L words and heart,
    you reshaped my art.
    So I close my eyes
    and I see your face.
    In silence, I hear your voice—
    and in dreams I walk your shores.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Just Beyond Waking]
    A street that feels familiar. A life that hasn’t happened yet. Just Beyond Waking explores the fragile space between dreams, memory, longing, and the quiet feeling that some futures are already waiting for us.

    [Twin Suns, Sister Moons]
    A poem about distance, longing, and the quiet pull of someone who lives beneath a different sky. Between twin suns and sister moons, the heart keeps reaching for home.

    [It’s You I Choose]
    A poem about devotion, vulnerability, and the quiet decision to stay. Sometimes love isn’t certainty—it is choosing someone anyway.

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

  • It’s You I Choose | A Poem About Love, Loyalty, and Choosing Someone Again

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem started with a voice.

    Not a theme. Not an image. Not a grand idea.

    Just a voice already halfway through a conversation.

    The kind of conversation where someone teases you, calls you crazy, and instead of defending yourself, you laugh because you’ve heard it before.

    A lot of my writing tends to be emotionally heavy, layered, symbolic, or wrapped in larger metaphors. This piece isn’t trying to do any of that.

    It’s intentionally conversational.

    A little sarcastic. A little self-aware. A little chaotic.

    Which, if I’m being honest, isn’t that far removed from how I actually talk.

    What interested me while writing it was the difference between being called strange and being comfortable enough with yourself to stop treating that as an insult.

    The speaker isn’t arguing for normalcy.

    They’re not saying, “No, I’m not weird.”

    They’re basically saying:

    “Yeah. Maybe I am. And?”

    That confidence becomes important because it creates space for the real confession waiting underneath the jokes.

    The poem begins as a defense of individuality, but it ends as a statement of devotion.

    Not because the speaker suddenly becomes serious, but because sincerity sneaks in when they’re not looking.

    And that’s probably my favorite kind of honesty.

    The kind that arrives accidentally.

    The kind that slips past the defenses.

    The kind that shows up disguised as a joke before quietly admitting:

    Of all the people in the world, you’re the one I’d choose.

    — Rowan Evans

    Two people sharing a quiet late-night conversation while sunrise begins to glow through a nearby window.
    Sometimes love is not certainty. Sometimes it’s simply choosing someone, again and again.

    It’s You I Choose
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Here we sit, you and I
    deep in conversation—

    you say, “you’re insane,”
    I say “perfectly.”
    Got it tatted on my arm,
    as a reminder—

    I might struggle
    with my mental health,
    but I’m still perfectly myself.

    It’s a pillar
    of my personality.

    They say I’m strange,
    yeah, well I might be.
    That feels highly likely.

    Loyal to a fault—
    line snaps.
    But my devotion
    is unshakeable.

    What I’m trying to say is—

    maybe
    I am crazy,
    but baby—
    it’s you I choose,
    it’s you I couldn’t
    stand to lose.

    Journey into Hexverse…

    [I’ll Be There to See Your Sunrise]
    Love has never come easily to me. This poem explores the fear, vulnerability, and quiet courage required to stay emotionally present when connection begins to matter deeply. “I’ll Be There to See Your Sunrise” is about choosing love despite the risk of heartbreak—and promising to remain long enough to witness someone fully.

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

  • 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.

  • Băobèi – A Devotional Love Poem by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Băobèi was written last year during a season of longing—when affection felt vast, distant, and almost mythic. It lived quietly in my drafts, waiting for a moment when it could breathe on its own.

    This poem is devotion rendered as geography: islands, blossoms, moonlight, and stars becoming a language for love. It is about carrying someone in every word, every breath, every imagined horizon. About how a name can become a compass.

    Some poems are born loud.
    This one waited.

    Moonlit shoreline with cherry blossoms and glowing flowers beneath a star-filled sky
    A garden of light—where devotion blooms between shore, sky, and dream.

    Băobèi
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Băobèi—
    your beauty rivals that of the Sakura,
    petals like whispered secrets
    drifting through my ink-stained veins.
    And I got your name,
    tatted on the tip of my tongue,
    your essence lives in every word that I say,
    haunting the shadows of my pen,
    echoing in the silence between heartbeats.

    Now I’m hopping islands, in search of
    your divineness. Your royalty,
    I bow to you, your highness.
    I crowned you the queen
    of my twilight kingdom.
    Your loyal subjects,
    all shadows of my thoughts.

    Cherry blossoms fade,
    but your radiance lingers,
    Orchid petals from Mindoro
    drip like honeyed secrets,
    Lotus from distant ponds
    mirrors your serene grace,
    Frangipani drifts across the wind,
    carrying your laughter.
    Sampaguita blooms in hidden corners,
    its tiny white stars like your quiet strength,
    Ylang-ylang whispers perfume into the night,
    each scent a pulse of your heartbeat
    I am drawn to like the tide.

    I trace the heavens in your honor—
    a moon suspended over Manila Bay,
    its reflection trembling across dark water,
    mirroring the tremor in my chest
    each time your name passes my lips.
    The Milky Way drapes over islands and mountains,
    a silken veil for your light to wander beneath,
    and I follow, tracing your essence
    through ink, shadow, and the spaces between heartbeats,
    until the world itself becomes
    a garden of your light.

    You are the rose in my ruin,
    the bloom I cradle in the ashes of my nights,
    the ink I spill across silent pages,
    and I am forever your humble witness,
    your loyal poet in a kingdom
    built from devotion, dusk, and flame.

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

  • Between Sun & Shore: A Poem About Healing, Love, and Becoming Whole

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Between Sun & Shore was written in February of last year, during a season where I was learning what it felt like to be seen gently instead of weathered. It came from a place of quiet awe—of realizing that sometimes love doesn’t arrive like a storm, but like warmth. Like light finding its way through the cracks you thought would always stay broken.

    This poem is about that in-between space: where grief softens, where healing begins, where you are no longer only the tide or the storm—but something new, something held. It’s about the moment you realize that someone hasn’t come to save you… they’ve come to grow beside you.

    Golden sunrise over a calm shoreline with soft waves and two distant figures standing in quiet closeness.
    Where storms soften and light learns your name.

    Between Sun & Shore
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I once drifted like a wayward tide,
    Lost in the waves, nowhere to hide.
    Storms had carved their name in me,
    Each scar a tale, each wound a sea.

    Then you arrived—a golden ray,
    Like sunrise spilling into the bay.

    Your voice, a hymn the wind would weave,
    Soft as the hum of the monsoon’s reprieve.
    You traced my ruins, stone by stone,
    And turned them into sacred homes.

    Now every ripple speaks your name,
    Each whispered breeze, each dancing flame.

    Like sampaga’s quiet grace,
    You bloom where sorrow left its trace.
    Between Sun and Shore, love grew—
    A bridge of light, leading to you.

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

  • My Heart, Population: You – A Poem About Tender Devotion

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem was written in February of last year, during an earlier incarnation of a project that has since transformed into something entirely different. It comes from a gentler season of longing—one where love felt less like fire and more like shelter.

    I’m sharing it now not because it fits where I am, but because it still tells the truth of who I’ve been: someone who loves in open doors and soft permanence, someone who believes devotion can be tender.

    Some poems don’t belong to the book they were born for.
    They belong to the timeline of the heart instead.

    Illustration of a heart-shaped city glowing at dusk, symbolizing love, home, and gentle devotion.
    A heart that became a home.

    My Heart, Population: You
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    You wandered in, no map, no key,
    Yet claimed this land inside of me.
    No walls were built, no toll to pay,
    Just open roads that beg you to stay.

    Your name’s engraved on every street,
    A love so vast, so pure, so sweet.

    Like ivy vines, you took your place,
    Wrapped every brick in your embrace.
    A cityscape of dreams anew,
    Each heartbeat whispering of you.

    No lease, no debt, no price to weigh,
    Yet still, I’d pay in love each day.

    A sunlit park where laughter rings,
    A chapel where devotion sings.
    My heart, once vacant, cold, askew—
    Now thrives with life, population: You.

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

  • 1-4-3 — A Poem About Choosing Love Without Losing Yourself

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem is about safety—not the kind that cages, but the kind that invites you to stay. It’s about finding someone who doesn’t demand your strength or survival instincts, only your honesty. Someone who makes asking for help feel like an act of trust rather than surrender.

    1-4-3 is a quiet confession of rootedness. Of choosing presence over flight. Of love that doesn’t chase or trap, but steadies.

    Sometimes the bravest thing we do
    is stop running—and stay.

    — Rowan Evans

    A poetic dusk street scene with a figure standing still, symbolizing emotional safety, choice, and rooted love.
    Sometimes love isn’t about needing someone—it’s about choosing to stay.

    1-4-3
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    1-4-3 My Muse Avenue,
    where I dwell—
    where the words swell.
    Girl, you don’t understand;
    you inspire my ink well.

    When I feel lost,
    and in need of help,
    it’s you I turn to.
    Not because I expect you to fix me—
    simply because
    you make it safe enough to ask.

    And that’s no small feat,
    because fear
    used to run my feet.
    Any time I felt safe,
    any flicker of hope in my chest,
    my feet would begin to move.

    But this time?
    They stay planted—
    firm, like roots,
    unwilling to move.
    Because you…

    you make it so easy
    to want to stay.

    Mahal kita, mahal ko—
    tahanan ko.

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

  • Pyres of the Patriarchy: A Witch’s Reclamation of Fire and Power

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Pyres of the Patriarchy is a ritual of words, fire, and defiance. It honors those who resisted, those who were silenced, and those who still carry the courage of rebellion in their veins. Salem’s shadows and flickering flames become a lens to see the power, rage, and liberation in claiming what the world tried to take away. This poem is both homage and invocation—a call to rise, to burn away chains, and to celebrate the sacred fire that refuses to be tamed.

    — Rowan Evans

    Illustration of witches rising from burning pyres under a moonlit sky, symbolizing feminist rebellion and sacred fire.
    Not for vengeance — for devotion.

    Pyres of the Patriarchy
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    In Salem’s darkened heart, the night exhales,
    and shadows twist like ink in candlelight.
    Whispers coil around bones,
    around lungs, around my pulse—
    curses pressed to lips
    that tremble with memory and rage.

    The witches rise.
    Not silent. Not broken.
    Their eyes burn with histories
    too long ignored.
    Their hands trace the edges of power
    that was stolen,
    that was denied,
    that we take back
    with every heartbeat, every breath.

    The pyres flare,
    and the chains writhe in their heat.
    Patriarchy bends, fractures, collapses,
    its ash swirling into moonlight,
    into the smoke of everything they told us
    we could never be.

    No more the quiet screams
    that haunted hallways
    we were told to shrink inside.
    No more the weight of “never enough.”
    We kneel in fire.
    We rise in flame.
    We are the storm they feared
    and the hymn they could not silence.

    From shackled wrists,
    from charred stakes,
    from every whispered lie,
    we rise.
    We rise,
    and the night bends with us,
    carries our laughter
    through every darkened room,
    through every shadow left unclaimed.

    I feel it in my chest—
    their power in me,
    their defiance in my hands.
    The fortress of the old world trembles,
    crumbles,
    and we dance
    in the embers of what they called impossible.

    A new dawn blooms in Salem’s bones.
    The pyres burn bright,
    not for vengeance,
    but for devotion:
    to our shadows,
    to our fire,
    to the witches we always were
    and always will be.

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

  • Sunflower Eyes: A Poem of Devotion, Longing, and Love by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem is a reflection on devotion, longing, and the quiet strength of love that stretches across distance. Using the imagery of a sunflower—rooted yet reaching, bending yet unbroken—I explore the way our hearts orient themselves toward those who bring light into our lives. It’s a meditation on hope, patience, and the silent pull of someone who becomes our constant, our compass, and our sunlight.

    Golden sunflower in a sunlit field, petals bending toward the sunlight at sunrise.
    Sunflower Eyes — rooted in hope, reaching for the light, a meditation on love and devotion.

    Sunflower Eyes
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Like a sunflower,
    always searching for golden rays.
    My eyes move, always,
    in search of your face.

    Even in the quiet moments,
    when petals fold in sleep,
    my gaze drifts across the distance,
    finding you in the small sparks
    that linger at the edges of the world.

    My roots sink deep,
    anchored in the soil of memory and hope,
    but my head, my heart,
    will always sway toward you,
    bending and bowing, yet never breaking.

    I yearn for the warmth
    that only your presence gives,
    each glance a sunbeam
    piercing through the shadowed field
    where I sometimes forget my own strength.

    Seasons shift and skies fade,
    but I follow the orbit of your light,
    spinning in silent devotion,
    even when the sun hides behind clouds.

    I bloom in the hope of your eyes,
    and in the quiet ache of waiting,
    I stretch ever upward,
    a golden blaze against the sky—
    your face, my sunlight,
    my constant, my compass,
    my forever.

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