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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: distance

  • Let Me Be Pacific | A Poem About the Ocean, Distance, Love, and Connection

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    There are some places that become more than places.

    An ocean can be a physical distance, a horizon, a body of water stretching farther than the eye can follow. But sometimes it becomes something else entirely—a canvas, a metaphor, a meeting place between two people who happen to be standing on opposite sides of the world.

    Let Me Be Pacific began with a simple invitation: let me show you the ocean the way I see it.

    From there, the words wandered where they wanted to go.

    Purple skies. Silver moons. Dark water. Rhymes. Trees. Wordplay.

    And eventually, the Pacific became more than scenery.

    It became the space between here and there—and the reminder that something can cross an enormous distance without ever needing to disappear.

    So, for a moment, come sit beside me on the shoreline.

    Let me paint you a picture.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary poet sits beside the Pacific at twilight beneath a silver moon, watching its reflection shimmer across the waves.
    The Pacific may separate two shores, but poetry has never been particularly good at respecting distance.

    Let Me Be Pacific
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Here let me take my words
    and paint a picture for you—
    the sky in shades of purple and blue,
    lit by the silver moon—
    it lingers over the bay,
    that’s where it stays—
    watching over the tide,
    and I sit on the shoreline—
    watching the ocean’s waves.

    Which ocean? Okay,
    here let me try and spell it out,
    let me be Pacific—
    it’s off the California coast,
    it touches the Philippine Sea,
    sits between Japan and Me.

    Now back to the imagery—
    there was me, next to a happy little tree,
    and the moon was shimmering,
    trembling across dark water—
    back on the shoreline,
    having written more lines,
    not less, but more rhymes.

    So let me stay Pacific—
    specific in the way I see the sea,
    how every wave feels like a message
    sent across the world to me.
    I sit, I rhyme, I watch the tide—
    the ocean’s big, but so’s my mind.

    And if you ask me why I write
    beside this ocean every night—
    it’s because the tide keeps teaching me
    how distance isn’t always far,
    how even the Pacific can carry a heart
    from California to wherever you are.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [My Nightmare]
    A poem about the nightmare of loving someone across distance, seeing the world from different perspectives, and holding onto the hope that the cracks can still be repaired—and that someday two separate shores might become one.

    [Rose & Ruin]
    Two minimalist poems exploring the opposing forces within creativity: the thoughts we cultivate into something beautiful and the darker thoughts we transform before they have a chance to decay.

    [Across the Page-cific]
    A playful, autobiographical journey through the strange places poetry can take me—from sandwich heartbreak and pasta diss poems to gothic monsters, mythology, ravens, ghosts, and storms across the page. Beneath the absurdity is something deeply personal: the realization that writing gave me a way to rebuild myself, piece by piece.

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

  • My Nightmare | A Poem About Love, Distance, Hope, and Kintsugi

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some nightmares aren’t about monsters.

    Sometimes the nightmare is waking up and realizing that the person you want beside you is standing beneath a completely different sky.

    My Nightmare comes from that place—the uneasy space between memory and hope, between what once felt shared and what now feels impossibly far away. It is a poem about distance, but not only the physical kind. There is distance between perspectives, between hearts, between the lives we imagine and the lives we are actually living.

    Still, even nightmares have endings.

    Sometimes you wake up before they become permanent.

    And sometimes, even while dreaming, you can still see a little gold threaded through the cracks.

    — Rowan Evans

    Two distant figures stand on separate shores beneath different moons, connected across the dark ocean by faint golden and platinum threads.
    Two shores. Two skies. One horizon—and enough gold left to believe they might meet there.

    My Nightmare
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    This is my nightmare.

    You and I across the distance,
    the view that we see is different—
    your moon from my sky
    is missing—
    the sun no longer shines,
    it’s dimming—

    I don’t see the spark anymore—
    don’t see the light in the dark anymore.
    What do I even I write for?
    I lost my purpose—think I did it on purpose,
    it’s like I can’t rhyme anymore,
    no clock, no watch, can’t tell time anymore.

    This is my nightmare.

    You and I across the distance,
    the view that we see is different—
    my moon is sickly pale,
    but yours seems fine though—
    the sun doesn’t provide light,
    it’s gotten real low—

    in times before, this is when
    I would Kintsugi the heart—
    but there’s not much heart left,
    it’s all gold—soft metal,
    softer soul—stayed warm,
    when the world grew cold.

    This is my nightmare.

    You and I across the distance,
    the view that we see is different—
    when we used to be,
    two pieces the puzzle
    was missing—
    the sun in the sky was fine,
    but it dimmed in our shine—

    I’ve spent time doing Kintsugi
    on your heart too—it was hard not to,
    gold and platinum weaved through—
    I really did see you, flaws and all—
    and all I saw was a gift from God.

    I still don’t think—
    I was wrong.

    But that was my nightmare…

    You and I across the distance,
    the view that we saw was different—
    but I still see the gold threads that connect,
    the platinum hope on the horizon,
    that one day the distance will close—
    and we’ll walk the same shore,
    it won’t be—

    mine and yours.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Dreaming Wrong]
    A familiar dream becomes unsettling when the ocean becomes a pond, the tide disappears, the moon loses its reflection, and nothing feels quite like it belongs. Dreaming Wrong explores the uncanny feeling of finding yourself inside a dream that looks familiar—but feels like someone else’s.

    [Poet’s Curse]
    Poet’s Curse explores the painful side of falling too deeply: giving pieces of yourself away freely, taking accountability for your own heartbreak, and realizing that learning to let go can be harder than learning to love.

    [Beach to Beach]
    A dream becomes a journey between familiar shores and unfamiliar cities in Beach to Beach (How I Get There), a poem about imagined travel, ocean crossings, longing, and the places we hope to someday reach while awake.

    [Where the Metaphors Lead]
    Some truths are easier to write than they are to say aloud. “Where the Metaphors Lead” explores the quiet space between dreams, confession, and the courage it takes to let another person know how deeply they’ve become woven into your inner world.

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

  • Opposite Coasts of the Same Silence | A Poem About Distance, Longing & Unspoken Love

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some distances aren’t measured in miles.

    They’re measured in conversations you haven’t had yet.

    In words that stayed behind your teeth.

    In the quiet space between two people who are looking toward one another but still can’t quite bridge the water between them.

    I’ve always been drawn to oceans because they represent contradiction. Water connects continents, yet it also separates them. It carries messages, memories, ships, storms—and still leaves shorelines untouched by one another.

    That became the emotional center of this poem.

    The “opposite coasts” aren’t necessarily literal places. They’re two inner worlds existing at the same time, close enough to imagine, far enough that neither person can simply step across.

    The moon became the only thing capable of visiting both shores.

    It witnesses both sides equally.

    It touches both tides.

    Yet even it cannot erase the distance.

    This poem isn’t about giving up.

    It’s about acknowledging that some silences become landscapes of their own—and learning to live honestly inside them until, perhaps, one day, the tide changes.

    — Rowan Evans

    Two figures stand on opposite moonlit shores separated by a wide ocean as the full moon reflects across the water between them.
    Some distances aren’t measured in miles—they’re measured in everything left unsaid.

    Opposite Coasts of the Same Silence
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I sit—moon kissed,
    watching the tide
    inside my mind—
    as dreams move in,
    and thoughts roll out.

    It’s an ocean wide,
    this divide between us.
    I can see your shore in my mind,
    but I can’t seem to reach it—
    we stand on opposite coasts
    of the same silence.

    It’s a silence
    full of things I never said.
    A silence
    shaped like your name.

    The moon hangs between us
    like a quiet messenger—
    I whisper secrets for her to carry
    from my shore to yours.
    It pulls at your tide and mine,
    but never enough to close the distance.

    Sometimes I swear
    I hear your voice in the undertow.
    The distance hums
    with everything unfinished.

    Every wave reaches
    for something it can’t hold.
    The water keeps returning,
    but you don’t.
    There are whole storms between us
    I never learned to name.
    Currents I can feel but not follow.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Where Intamacy Begins]
    For some, attraction begins with appearance. For others, it begins with conversation. Where Intimacy Begins explores the beauty of curiosity, deep listening, and the quiet connection that forms when two minds truly meet.

    [I’d Rather Try]
    Anyone can promise they’d die for someone. But love isn’t built on one dramatic moment—it’s built on showing up, trying again tomorrow, and proving your words through consistent action.

    [Pointing Me Home]
    The final poem in the No Metaphor Left Behind trilogy explores dreams, hope, and belonging. Through moonlight, ocean tides, and quiet conversation, Pointing Me Home reflects on carrying hope long before reaching the place you call home.

    [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.

    [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]

  • Crossing the Sea (No Metaphor Left Behind) | A Poem About Relocation, Distance, and Finding Home

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem began as an experiment in restraint.

    I wanted to see what would happen if I stopped relying on metaphor—the oceans, tides, moons, and distant imagery that so often shape the way I write—and instead said things as directly as I could.

    What I discovered is that I don’t really think in a “non-metaphorical” way.

    Even when I try to remove symbolism, my mind still reaches for it. The language of distance, direction, and crossing appears naturally because that is how I process emotional states: spatially, geographically, in motion.

    So the poem became something else.

    Not an escape from metaphor, but an awareness of it.

    A recognition that even when I say “I won’t use the ocean this time,” I still understand my life through movement across it.

    This piece lives in that tension between clarity and instinct—between what I am trying to say plainly, and the language my mind naturally returns to.

    And in the end, it admits something simple:

    Sometimes the clearest way to say the truth… is still through the shape of the thing you tried to leave behind.

    — Rowan Evans

    A lone traveler stands on a Pacific shoreline looking toward distant islands across the ocean at sunrise.
    Some distances are measured in miles. Others are measured in becoming.

    Crossing the Sea (No Metaphor Left Behind)
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I am going to try
    something that terrifies me—
    that most of the time,
    would leave me paralyzed.

    I am going to try
    and say everything
    I hold inside—
    no metaphors
    to hide behind
    this time.

    I’m not where
    I want to be
    and part of me,
    thinks I’ll never be.

    I know that’s just
    fear and doubt—

    just because part of me
    thinks it, doesn’t make it true.

    Relocating
    is just taking
    longer than I wanted it to.

    But I know the direction.
    The destination is clear—
    I just got to get there.

    I got to leave here.

    This isn’t a new feeling—
    I’ve said this all before,
    buried in metaphors.

    Hidden behind symbolism.

    This is where
    I’d put the ocean
    and the tide,
    a way to describe
    the distance.

    Between where I am
    and where I want to be—
    and to get there,
    I have to cross the sea.

    Not a metaphor,
    I mean that literally—
    Pacific and the Philippine.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Translating What I Feel]
    A poem about the invisible process of turning emotion into imagery, imagery into language, and language into poetry. An intimate reflection on creativity, loneliness, and twenty-three years of learning to translate what the heart feels.

    [Recognizes Home]
    A free-verse poem exploring the difference between love as dependency and love as choice. It challenges the idea that love must be need-based, instead centering the quiet strength of choosing someone while still remaining whole on your own.

    [Not Rebuilding You]
    A poem about love as an act of presence rather than rescue. Through construction imagery, Not Rebuilding You explores trust, devotion, emotional safety, and the quiet work of building a foundation strong enough for healing to grow.

    [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.

    [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.

    [Altar and Roses]
    A gothic free verse poem about poetic identity, recurring symbolism, devotion, and the quiet humanity beneath dramatic imagery.

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

  • The Mind’s Winter: A Poem About Emotional Withdrawal, Overthinking, and Missing Someone

    Rowan Evans

    This wasn’t planned as part of the current sequence.
    Some things just need to be written–and shared–when they happen.

    Author’s Note

    There are patterns we don’t always notice until we’ve lived them more than once.

    The same thoughts.
    The same timing.
    The same quiet retreat inward.

    The Mind’s Winter comes from recognizing one of those cycles in real time–watching myself disappear into my own head, knowing it’s happening, and not always knowing how to stop it.

    It’s strange, being both the one experiencing something and the one observing it. To understand the “why,” but still feel pulled into it anyway.

    This piece isn’t about solving that pattern.

    It’s about naming it.

    About acknowledging the way overwhelm can turn inward, how distance can grow even when you don’t want it to, and how sometimes the things that matter most are the very things that scare us into retreat.

    And maybe, in recognizing the cycle…

    there’s a chance to break it.

    — Rowan Evans

    A lone figure stands in a quiet winter landscape, surrounded by bare trees and falling snow, symbolizing emotional withdrawal and introspection.
    Sometimes the cold isn’t outside—it’s the space we retreat into when everything becomes too much.

    The Mind’s Winter
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    February 8th, 2026—
    I got sick again.
    It happens every year
    like clockwork.
    It starts with the headache,
    caused by being overwhelmed.

    It starts slowly,
    then snowballs
    into more.

    You see, this period of time—
    it usually comes after
    what I tend to call
    the mind’s winter.

    I slip into a deep void
    of thought.

    January 8th…
    that’s the date.

    That’s when I drift inside.
    I get lost in my mind,
    and I stay there—
    one month—I’m gone.
    Lost in thought.

    One month
    leading up to my “big day,”
    the one they say
    should celebrate me.

    But I don’t see it that way.
    It’s just another day.

    And usually,
    I bounce back.
    It’s quick…

    but this?

    This feels like an attack—
    one month in my head,
    two weeks sick and then?

    I broke my glasses—
    vision—
    I lost access.

    And the longer I’m gone,
    the more I pull away,
    even as I—

    want to stay.

    You know what
    the worst part is?

    The worst part is—
    that I know why.

    I know why I do it…
    why I pull away.

    I’ve said the reason
    a hundred times,
    in nearly as many rhymes.
    It’s because you meant
    too much to me.
    I got scared and retreated
    into me.

    So here it is—
    March 21st,
    and I—

    I haven’t spoken to you
    since February 6th,
    and if I’m honest—

    I miss you.

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

  • Nocturnal Crossing – Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism by Rowan Evans | Dark Romantic Poetry

    Rowan Evans

    ✦ Author’s Note ✦

    There is a strange sanctity in sleep—the quiet surrender where worlds fold into each other, where hearts separated by oceans can meet in the hush of night. This piece is a liturgy for those encounters, the nightly pilgrimages to a shared dreamscape. In this realm, distance dissolves, and the pulse of longing becomes the rhythm of devotion. Let these words be a bridge between the waking world and the sanctuary of dreams.

    Shadowy figures reaching across a silver moonlit ocean – illustration for Nocturnal Crossing poem.
    Nocturnal Crossing – a neo-gothic exploration of love, longing, and dream-bound devotion by Rowan Evans.

    ✦ Invocation ✦

    Come, children of moonlight and tide,
    step softly into the hours where reality frays,
    where the air tastes of salt and shadow,
    and silver fingers of night brush your skin.
    Let the night cradle you,
    its soft hum and velvet rustle weaving paths across oceans,
    drawing us together beneath stars that shimmer like cold fire.
    Breathe with me the brine-wet air,
    feel the pull of another soul
    even when miles of water shimmer between us,
    and hear the lull of waves like whispered secrets.

    Nocturnal Crossing
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I slip past the clock, past the walls of day,
    where moonlight drips like ink over silvered bay,
    and salt tangs the air, heavy on my tongue.
    The ocean waits, a vast, cold divide,
    but nightly I sail where your shadows hide,
    and the hush hums softly like a ghostly song.

    In waking hours, the tide keeps you away,
    distance carved like a cathedral of gray.
    Yet sleep is a bridge, a haunted parade,
    where fog curls softly, damp and scented with brine,
    and darkness sways, a slow, breathing veil.

    Your voice drifts through the chambered night,
    a ghostly hymn, pale lanterns in flight.
    I reach for the echo of your trembling hands,
    tide-bound in life, yet together we stand,
    fingertips brushing the mist like feathers of shadow.

    The stars spin slow, like dancers in lace,
    tracing the curve of your dream-lit face.
    Every sigh a hymn, every blink a key,
    unlocking the hours where only you meet me,
    the night humming faintly under our tethered breaths.

    Our bodies unmade, yet memory sings,
    the hush of your breath, the tilt of your wings.
    Velvet tides pull us under, pull us near,
    currents of shadow whispering that you’re here,
    the brine of your absence sweet on my lips.

    Every night, I dive through the velvet seam,
    where shadows and saltwater merge in a dream.
    The moon is a lantern, the sky a cathedral,
    and I cross the waves to your phantom, ethereal,
    hearing the distant crackle of star-fire above.

    The stars trace your face like ink on my skin,
    every sigh a prayer, every blink a sin.
    And when I awake, the ocean roars,
    its briny scent heavy in the morning air,
    but in dreams, I hold you on moonlit shores.

    I wait for the night with fevered eyes,
    for the hush of your laughter, the drift of skies,
    the faint taste of salt and shadow on my tongue.
    Though oceans are cruel and daylight steals,
    in dreams, I am yours, and the dark reveals.

    ✦ Benediction ✦

    May your dreams carry you gently across the seas,
    where longing dissolves into the hush of night,
    and the cool press of moonlight guides your steps.
    May the scent of salt and the brush of shadow
    lead you to the soul you seek,
    and when the sun awakens the world,
    may you rest in the quiet warmth of remembered touch,
    the hush of tides still echoing in your chest,
    knowing that in the sacred hours
    you are never truly apart,
    and the pulse of devotion lingers on your skin.

    Journey into the Hexverse

    If the hush of night lingers with you, if the pulse of devotion and quiet longing still hums in your chest, wander further into these chambers of ink and flame:

    To Be Near Your Flame | Rowan Evans
    A haunting meditation on love, longing, and the quiet courage of staying close to the one who sets your heart ablaze. Includes a benediction for connection and devotion.

    Penguin Pebbling | Roo the Poet
    A delicate, heartwarming poem celebrating the small treasures of love and the quiet moments that linger in our hearts.

    Litany of Shelter | Rowan Evans
    A quiet vow in four lines: I may not stop the rain, but I can be your shelter.

    13 Riddles for the Starborn Child | Roo the Poet
    These 13 moonlit riddles are not meant to be solved, but to gently unravel you. Roo the Poet—the child of my mythos—wanders barefoot through dreams, gathering starlight and scattering questions like wildflower seeds.

    Step lightly. Let the words fold around you. Let them hold you as the night holds us all.