Shadows and Stars grew out of that quiet kind of love that doesn’t ask for transformation—only truth. It’s a devotion rooted in darkness as much as light, where two imperfect people find a rhythm that doesn’t require saving or fixing, just seeing. This poem is about loving someone exactly as they are—the sharp edges, the softness, the chaos, the fire—and trusting that the right souls don’t dilute each other. They orbit together.
Two souls, bound by gravity and devotion, meeting where shadow and starlight become one.
Shadows and Stars Poetry by Rowan Evans
I am not here to save you,
because I am no savior.
And you—
you are no damsel in distress,
you’re just stressed.
Life might be
somewhat of a mess,
but you’re still worth it,
nonetheless.
And I’m not here to fix you,
because you’re not a fixer-upper.
You’re a person—
complex and perfect
in your imperfections.
Your darkness
matches mine.
I find,
in these shadows,
we’re two of a kind,
you and I.
No, I don’t want to change you.
Why would I want to change you?
To change you would be to
sand down the edges I’ve come to love.
You see—
I love it when you’re mean.
I love the bite, the burn, the sting.
I love when you talk shit,
spit venom.
You say you’re crazy? I love that too.
I love the attitude, the dominance you exude,
and I love it when you’re gentle.
It’s simple—
it’s you. It’s always been.
Two stars, orbit in tandem.
And here we stay,
constellations intertwined,
your shadows in my light,
my darkness in your shine.
This Is Confession is one of those pieces that arrives when I’ve stopped trying to be poetic and instead let myself be honest. It’s less a poem and more a moment of emotional transparency—an admission pulled straight from the chest rather than crafted on the page.
I have a habit of writing around the things I feel most deeply, hiding truth between metaphors or reshaping it into imagery so it feels safer. This time, I didn’t want safety. I wanted clarity. I wanted to name the weight and tenderness of caring for someone quietly, intensely, without performance or pretense.
Sometimes the most frightening thing we can do is say something plainly. Sometimes the bravest thing is letting the truth stand without armor.
This piece is that bravery for me.
— Rowan Evans
A moment of truth written in ink—where confession becomes poetry.
This Is Confession Poetry by Rowan Evans
I’ve done this once before, but this isn’t poetry… This— this is confession.
This is me spilling my guts in ink-carved words. Even on the days we don’t talk, you’re still at the forefront of my thoughts. Your name lingers on the tip of my tongue. You’re my favorite topic— not to sound too obsessive.
But even obsession feels too small a word for the way my thoughts orbit you.
You’re the gravity I return to, even on the days I swear I’m drifting. Some names echo— yours resonates.
I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere between your laughter and your pain, I started carrying pieces of you like they were my own.
I kept it quiet. I didn’t say a thing.
Not because I’m ashamed, but because admitting it feels like stepping into a room lit only by truth— and truth has never been gentle with me.
It’s always been the same: people take what they want from me— then they leave. Or they leave the moment I open up, start to spill my guts, just a little— when I get a little too real, too much, too feel.
Two truths and a lie… The truth is— I’ve always cared more than I should, and I’ve always been better at hurting myself than disappointing anyone else.
The lie is pretending I don’t feel all of this every time you cross my mind.
Because the truth is— you do. Every day. In ways I don’t admit out loud, in ways I fold quietly between the lines of every poem I swear isn’t about you.
And maybe this is reckless, maybe this is too much— but confession was never meant to be safe.
It was meant to be honest. And honestly? I’d spill every last secret I have if it meant you’d understand even a fraction of how deeply you live in me.
Looking for more poetry? You can find it all in theLibrary of Ashes.
If the first vow was silence, this one is surrender. It’s the echo that follows devotion — love as burden willingly shouldered, as ache freely chosen. Where the first vow offered peace, this one offers endurance.
It’s the second breath of a promise I never meant to make out loud — that I would take the weight from the shoulders of the one I love, not because I’m strong enough, but because I must. Because love, in its truest form, is not selfless — it is shared suffering, shared salvation.
I meant every word of the first vow. And this one, too.
“Love is not selfless — it is shared suffering, shared salvation.” — Rowan Evans
I Love You (Enough to Break Willingly) Poetry by Rowan Evans
To let the ink run dry, that’s what I said. I’d give my voice for your smile. And I meant it too.
But even more than that, I’d break willingly for you.
Give me the weight, the pressure that you carry. I’ll hoist it on my back, I’ll walk with you. Let your steps be lighter, let your mind find ease for a while.
I’d carry it all, even if it breaks me. ‘Cause I’d break willingly…
This is the second vow— that I’ll never say outloud, but still I’ll prove it… I’ll prove it, somehow. If it meant your life was a breeze, I’d let it pull me to my knees. I’d bend and break for you.
Even more than that, I’d break willingly.
The Silent Vows
I Love You (Enough to Go Silent) A vow written in ink and silence — a confession of love so deep it would sacrifice its own voice to spare another’s tears. “I Love You (Enough to Go Silent)” is a Neo-Gothic devotion from Rowan Evans, where the act of not speaking becomes the loudest declaration of love.
Ordinary Heart, Extraordinary You serves as a spiritual successor to a poem I shared back in June — a piece that spoke of wanting to be “the last one,” not the first. Where that poem lived in longing and quiet promise, this one lives in the present moment — in laughter, teasing, honesty, and connection.
It’s a reflection on how love, in its truest form, doesn’t always need to shout. Sometimes it’s enough to show up, to care openly, to let someone know that even the smallest moments are extraordinary because they are shared.
This piece, like so many before it, was written for the one who inspires the gentler parts of me — my muse who reminds me that being soft is not the same as being weak, that tenderness can be its own kind of rebellion.
She will know it’s her — she always does.
Inspired by the quiet moments that become extraordinary when shared with someone who truly sees you.
Ordinary Heart, Extraordinary You Poetry by Rowan Evans
You laughed about him— he’s an asshole, you said— “Most guys are,” I replied, “I’d say I’m probably an exception… but some people might think I’m an asshole.” You didn’t hesitate. “No, you’re not.” And that was enough— a single truth, quiet but steady, like a hand on the small of my back when everything else wobbles.
Later, you startled me. “Omg, fuck,” you said, and my chest jumped before I even knew why. I told you, it’s okay—proof I care. You replied, “You don’t need proof. You know I know.” And the world shrank, everything else left behind except the way your words settled in my chest.
We talked about how he doesn’t really get you— how he’s always asking about the future when you just want to live in the moment. We talked about how his plans are boring as hell, how you’re aching for a thrill.
You said you’d tease him on the ferris wheel, your laugh filling the night, “I’d suffocate him with my boobies.” And without missing a beat, I said— “If he’s not up for it, I’ll take his place.” And it wasn’t bravado—it was instinct. Because being near you makes me brave in ways I didn’t know I could be.
You spoke of thrill rides— bungee jumps and wall climbs. “I’ve always wanted to try,” I admitted. “But it would take the right person, someone who could push me through.” You responded with one single word: “Me.” And just like that, fear felt smaller— the leap somehow possible if I took it with you.
I don’t need to be first. I don’t even need to be noticed yet. I just need to be the one who stays, who laughs at your jokes, who trembles when you almost make my heart stop, who shows up because you matter.
I will be that one. Not loud, not flashy. But here. Always here. Waiting for the ordinary moments that turn extraordinary because they are ours.
I wrote this in the quiet between 4 and 5 a.m., when my thoughts refused to let me sleep because they kept circling back to her. Not out of longing alone, but from a deeper wish—that she might know peace, that her smile might return without effort, that her chest might rise and fall free of heaviness. This piece is not a love poem in the usual sense. It is a prayer, a vow, a cathedral built from words to hold her burdens for a while so she can simply breathe.
A Cathedral for Her Peace – a poetic sanctuary of love, devotion, and quiet reverence by Rowan Evans.
A Cathedral for Her Peace Poetry by Rowan Evans
She’s on my mind, like all of the time. Got me on my knees again speaking to Him. Just askin’ for ease, begging for her peace.
“God… give me her trials, let me carry the weight for a while. I just want to see her smile.
Let me take away her pain— be her umbrella in the rain, the shelter when storms arrive.”
Let her walk where the sun leans soft, where the wind sings lullabies instead of sirens, where shadows dare not linger. Let her laughter ring like bells in a cathedral, her tears fall only for joy, every sigh a hymn of comfort.
I will be the echo of her unspoken prayers, the vessel that holds her storms, the altar upon which her dreams may rest unbroken. She deserves peace that drapes like velvet, a hush that whispers, you are safe. You are enough.
She deserves to be spoiled in love, revered in touch, to have every desire mirrored back as truth. Let every gaze that falls upon her see her crown, not a shadow to tame, but a flame to worship. I will guard the sanctity of her being as a priest guards a holy relic, as a fortress holds the key to a kingdom.
I will carry the weight she should never have to bear, stand unwavering where darkness tempts, and watch over her like a cathedral standing sentinel through every storm, every unkindness, every cruel word the world might hurl her way.
Even if I am not the one to give it, let me be the one to show her she is worth it all. To show her she is lovable, truly, even if she gets a little unruly, even if the world whispers otherwise. Let her know, without question, that in my eyes, she is enough, she has always been enough, and she deserves nothing less than reverence.
Closing Note
If you’ve ever felt that same ache—for someone else’s joy to matter more than your own—then you already understand what this poem carries. Love is not always about possession or proximity; sometimes it is simply devotion, a fierce hope that the ones we care for find rest and light.
If this speaks to you, I invite you to share your own prayer, blessing, or small wish—for the person on your heart, for the soul you’d carry through storms if you could. Together, may we remind each other that reverence is not rare, and that offering peace to another is among the purest forms of love.
May these words linger like candlelight in the quiet corners of your heart. If you wish to wander further into shadows and flame, the doors ofThe Library of Ashesawait, holding the stories of devotion, ruin, and reverence, all bound in ink and ember.
This piece is a devotion in disguise — written in the quiet hours between timezones, between breaths, between guarded words and aching hearts. It’s about witnessing someone deeply, loving them gently, and holding space without asking for anything in return. I wrote it for one person. But maybe, just maybe… it’s for you, too.
Even in different timezones, love finds a way to stay.
Invocation
For the ones who learned to love with their silence before their words. For those who trace the weather in someone else’s sky, just to understand them better.
Manila Time Poetry by Rowan Evans
I didn’t notice at first— how your name sat gently on my tongue long before I ever said it aloud.
It was just a widget at first, a second clock on my home screen, ticking in time with your sunrise. A quiet devotion disguised as practicality.
2 A.M. your time meant I braced for tremors— not the kind that crack the earth, but the kind that crack the heart.
I knew your moods by minutes, learned the language of your silence before your voice ever filled the gaps.
You didn’t have to tell me when the storms had come— I already knew how they sounded in the rhythm of your typing.
I kept the weather on standby— not for small talk, but to understand your discomfort. Humidity clings like anxiety sometimes.
You never asked for me to care this much. You didn’t have to. I fell into it like breath, like the gravity of your pain was a call I couldn’t ignore.
You asked to hear my voice— I didn’t expect your laugh to bloom like that, all giggles and soft disbelief when I called yours cute. Even in five minutes, you carved out a place in my memory no one else had touched.
The second call— quiet, trembling. You didn’t speak, just cried. I didn’t leave. I let silence speak love in a language you could trust.
Now, we fill hours with shared breath and soft truths. You cry freely with me now— your vulnerability, no longer met with silence or shame.
I listen. When your ghosts scream, I speak your name softly until they back down.
And still— you tell me all the reasons you believe people leave: your fire, your scars, your unfiltered honesty, your storm-bred instincts to guard, to bite, to run.
But I’m not made of fear. I’m stitched together with patience, with soft hands that don’t flinch at the weight of your story.
You called yourself broken. I call you brave. You called yourself darkness. But I’ve seen your light, even when you tried to hide it beneath a growl.
You listed your “red flags” like a warning. I read them like a love letter:
Anger? Just fire misplaced. Paranoia? A wound learning to trust. Possessive? You mean devotion. Jealous? You just care deeply. Strict? I’m listening, Ma’am. Unpredictable? Adventure. Bitchy? A woman with boundaries. Sarcastic? Fluency. Selfish? Please, take what you need. Sadist? Well, I bruise easy, and gladly. Darkness? I’ve been waiting in it for someone like you.
And if you told me to hang up on anyone else? I wouldn’t even hesitate. One word, and I’m yours.
I’ve told you—again and again— I’m not going anywhere. Not when you’re quiet. Not when you’re hurting. Not even when your trust flinches.
Because I mean it when I say you’re important to me. I mean it when I say I wish I could be there— to hold you when you cry, to remind you that what he did was not your fault. That none of this is a reflection of your worth.
You are lovable. You are valuable. You are deeply, profoundly loved. And if you let me, I will carry what I can of the weight you weren’t meant to bear alone.
Love doesn’t always need permission to show up. It just needs a door cracked open. And yours, even guarded, has never once made me turn away.
I’ll keep showing up, in silence, in storms, in Manila time, and every moment in between.
And if I could— I would cross every mile between us, burn every timezone just to taste the air you breathe when you laugh. I’d trade sleep for a moment to watch you smile in real time. To brush away the weight behind your eyes with my fingers, and say with trembling certainty— you are safe with me.
Because the truth is, somewhere between those late-night calls and stolen giggles, I fell for you.
Not in a crashing, desperate way, but in the kind of falling that feels like floating— like peace. Like coming home to a place I’ve never been but always longed for.
I fell for your storm and the quiet that follows it. I fell for your voice, how even your sarcasm feels like warmth wrapped in armor. I fell for the way you fight your pain and still manage to be soft with me.
And I know you’ve been let down by people who promised the moon then blamed you when it disappeared. But I am not a promise— I’m a presence.
I don’t need you to always be easy to love. I just want to love you exactly as you are.
So if you’re asking— yes, I want to be yours.
Not just in soft texts and teasing words, not just in Manila time and midnight devotion— but in all timezones, in all the messy, terrifying, beautiful ways this could become real.
I’ll wait. I’ll stay. I’ll love you here, and if you ever ask me to— I’ll love you there, too.
Benediction
May you find someone who knows your storms and stays anyway. May your name always be spoken with reverence — even in silence, even across oceans.
You called yourself a devil-woman, and I smiled like a sinner watching angels fall.
She says, “I wish you could see me at my brightest.” But love— I met you in the ruins, and I swear, even your ashes glowed.
You ask if you deserve these words, as though devotion were a thing to be earned instead of something I bled willingly— ink, soul and starlight, dragged from the marrow to spell your name in reverence.
You were fire-burned, soul-scabbed, eyes like war-torn altars and I— I fell to my knees anyway.
You want to give me the sun, but I have seen its envy. The stars? I would rip them from their heavens just to return the shimmer you lost in the dark.
You called yourself a devil-woman, and I smiled like a sinner watching angels fall.
Yes— you’re all thorns and temptation, rage and soft wreckage, but do you not know? Even Lucifer was once the Morning Star, and I would follow your light through hell and back again.
You are grace wrapped in fury, the kind of storm that leaves me kneeling, kissed by lightning, whispering prayers in your name as though your laughter could resurrect me.
And I— I’m not leaving.
Not when your darkness made my heart a cathedral, not when your voice taught my ghosts how to sing.
I will always be near— in breath, in spirit, in the hush between your sobs and the sacred silence that follows.
You deserve these words, and a thousand more. You deserve the cosmos carved into lullabies, the moon weeping its light into your palms.
You— with your shadows and softness, your fierce, aching heart— are the most worthy thing I’ve ever written for.
Even if the sky falls black, I’ll still call your name a holy thing.
I love you in the darkened hours,
Where the cracks in your soul glitter like shattered glass,
Each piece—your flaw, your scar,
A piece of my devotion, etched in shadowed hues.
The light cannot kiss you without kissing the broken parts first,
So let me cradle them, these fractured remnants,
In the sanctuary of my hands.
Each bruise, a map of the battles you’ve fought
And survived, each fracture,
A road sign leading to a deeper truth.
I see you in the bleeding echoes,
Where your heart’s wounds pulse like whispered prayers,
And I hold them with reverence.
You are the tapestry of this life,
Threaded with brokenness, yet stitched with sacred intent.
In the hollow of your chest, I see my own heart
A twin flame of darkness,
Reveling in the beauty of imperfection.
Every shard of you is a star in the sky
I would catch, even if it scorched my skin.
You are not broken, my love,
You are sacred,
And I will carry your weight—
For you need not carry your scars alone.
You are a cathedral of fractured glass— every pane kissed by catastrophe, every color a hymn forged in flame. I see the story etched in the way you flinch at praise, the slight hitch in your breath when silence dares to stretch too long.
You were made not by ease, but by impact— a mosaic of once-shattered grace. I do not look away. No, I kneel in reverence.
Your scars are constellations and I have mapped them all— tracing the stories in your skin like star-charts of survival. There is beauty in the broken, not despite it, but because.
So let me be the quiet sky you rise into, where you are not reduced to memory or martyr. Let me lift the ruins from your chest, name them sacred, and hang them like relics in the chapel of my care.
I’ll clear your slate—not to erase, but to rest it. To archive your ache in the folds of my own soul. Your memories are safe with me. The weight you bore— I’ve room for it in my ribs.
I don’t want to be the shadow that steals your sun, but the lighthouse that stays burning when your horizon blurs again. Let me be the firmament under your tremble, a psalm against the silence.
You don’t have to stumble alone. You never did— but now, you don’t have to believe that lie again.
I didn’t arrive with fireworks. No trumpet of fate announced my coming. I stepped into your life like rain slipping through the cracks of an old roof— gentle, persistent, quiet.
You didn’t see me at first, your eyes were too full of smoke from the fires they set in your soul. But I saw you— the way moonlight sees a battlefield after war, not for the blood, but for the wildflowers growing through the bones.
They loved you like a tempest, tore through your softness and called it passion. They mistook your silence for surrender and your loyalty for something to conquer. But I am not a storm— I am the stillness that follows. I am the breath you forgot to take.
You don’t need to open the door all at once. Leave it ajar— I’ll wait on the porch of your trust until your ribs remember how to unlock.
They got to your heart first— left it threadbare and trembling. But I’ll be the one who sits beside it without asking it to perform. You don’t need to shine for me— I will love you in shadow.
Let them be the architects of your ache. I will be the gardener of your healing. I’ll trace the map of your scars like constellations no one else stayed to name, and I’ll kiss each one like a holy place I am blessed to touch.
I don’t need to be the first to hold your hand, just the last to let it go.
Let them be the spark, the flame, the blaze that blinded. I’ll be the hearth— quiet, warm, steady in the long winter of your doubt.
You are not shattered, my love— you are stained glass, lit from within. And I am the pew beneath your cathedral soul, content just to be close, just to kneel and whisper your name like a sacred hymn.
You are not a burden. You are a blessing that learned to walk with a limp. You are the poem they tried to rewrite, but I’ll read you as you are— every crossed-out line, every redacted verse, every unfinished sentence— and still call you complete.
Because I don’t want to be your first. Let them hold that hollow crown. I want to be your last— the one who stays when the curtain falls and the world forgets, the one who wraps their arms around the quiet ache and says, I see you. You don’t have to run anymore.
And when the night softens into dawn, I will be the gentle hand that brushes your hair from your face— warm fingertips tracing the curve of your cheek, the subtle scent of rain and jasmine lingering on your skin, the quiet breath that hums your favorite song— a lullaby that holds you safe.
I will be the promise in the slow unfolding of morning light, the softness of a whispered name lingering between us like a secret.
Let them fade like shadows on forgotten walls. I will be the light in your slow sunrise— steadfast, unwavering, the last embrace you reach for when the world grows still.
Poetry by Rowan Evans 