Author’s Note

Sometimes the hardest thing to admit isn’t how much someone means to you – it’s how afraid you are of losing them.

This piece isn’t about drama or desperation. It’s about recognizing a reflex I developed a long time ago, and choosing to stay present instead of running.

— Rowan Evans

Learning Not to Run
Poetry by Rowan Evans

I’ve been feeling this fear lately,
it’s a heavy weight in my chest
and it sometimes locks me down.
It keeps me trapped inside—
hidden away in my mind.
It’s not that I don’t want to reach out,
it’s like I honestly forget how.

I don’t talk about it really,
but I push people away
when I feel they mean too much.
When every thought
begins to center them,
and I see them in every dream.
I know what that means.

I got so used
to people walking away.
They’d hardly
ever stay.
So I learned
to protect myself.
When I felt
myself
getting too attached,
I’d pull back.

And that feeling?
It still lingers,
it’s a constant battle.
I don’t want to be like this.
But I struggle.
I’m still scared to show
too much.
I’m too weird,
I struggle to
bite my tongue.

I guess that’s why
the fear still lingers,
I’m afraid I’ll say too much.
Be too exposed
with nowhere to go,
stuck in the open.

What’s the worst that can happen?
That’s what they keep asking,
they say it’s rejection.
But for me? It’s the end of
the connection.
And I’m not like this
all the time.
Just when I slip
and trip
into the depths
of my mind.

Now with a breath taken,
no longer shaking—
I write to you.
Even knowing
you may never see it,
but I can only say this
because you make me brave.

You make me brave in ways,
I don’t know how to explain—
because you haven’t
done a thing.
But still, because of you
I’ve changed.
I’ve grown in ways
I didn’t know
I needed.

And I won’t say it,
even as it sits
on the tip
of my tongue—
but what I will say,
is this:

You mean more to me
than most,
and even when I struggle
to stay present
in the world outside
my mind—
you’re still in my thoughts
all the time.

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