Introduction

This piece explores the tension between external assumptions and inner truth. It reflects on dualities of identity—masculine and feminine, strength and softness, approachability and untouchability—and celebrates the uncontainable self. It is a declaration: I will not conform to expectations; I am fully, unapologetically me.

I Am Not Your Puzzle
Poetry by Rowan Evans

They stare.
They whisper.
They assign me shapes that do not exist.

“Man.”
“Woman.”
“Something else.”
All wrong.

I am fire wrapped in silk,
a storm brushing against the calm,
the knife that softens,
the hand that strikes,
the laugh that shatters silence.

They want to understand me.
They cannot.
I am not a riddle to solve,
not a lesson for their comfort.
I am not for your ease,
not for your comprehension.
I am me.

Masculine. Feminine. Both. Neither.
A contradiction that hums beneath skin,
that bends time and expectation,
that exists fully
even when the world cannot name it.

I am tender and terrifying.
Soft enough to hold your secrets,
sharp enough to cut illusions in half.
I am easy to love,
but impossible to own.

You think you see me—
but the closer you lean, the more I slip.
I will not fit your boxes.
I will not stand still for your definitions.
I will not shrink to make your eyes comfortable.

I am the surface and the depth,
the ache and the exhale,
the hand that heals
and the fire that purges.

Call me what you want—
I am not your puzzle.
I am the storm, the calm, the contradiction,
the infinite they cannot name.
I am me.

And that is more than enough.

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