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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: gothic fiction

  • Rite of Ink: Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Introduction
    By Roo the Poet

    🌸 (Roo bouncing around, smiling.)

    Heeey, you’re heeere!
    Haha—yes, yes, YES… you found it.

    This is messy.
    This is wild.
    This is word soup with fangs and sparkles.

    🟠 Rowan’s giggling.
    🔴 B.D.’s growling.
    🟣 Hex is lurking.

    And me?
    I’m jumping up and down, waving my little knife, spilling ink everywhere,
    laughing like a sugar‑crazed tornado in a tutu.
    Maybe I’m plotting. Maybe I’m just playing.

    Read it if you want.
    Or don’t.
    I don’t care.
    But I’ll be watching.
    Always watching.

    Digital artwork of ink spilling from a quill, forming shadowy, magical shapes with purple, crimson, and blue tones, conveying chaos and mystical energy.
    Rite of Ink visualized: words as weapons, ink as magic, and chaos wrapped in gothic beauty.

    Rite of Ink
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    🟠 (Rowan takes center stage.)

    You say you write what you really live—
    but it reads like fantasy.
    I say I write a fantasy—
    but it reads like what I really live.

    Nobody believes what you’re saying, dawg,
    because honestly, your honesty sounds like a fraud.
    You say, this is my life though—
    and nobody buys what you’re sellin’, bro.

    I could write three poems about one conversation,
    say I made it all up, and still they see the life in it.
    You could write a whole poem about your life,
    and readers would still find lies in it.

    You could put your wife’s name in every rhyme,
    and still nobody believes she exists.
    I turn my muse into an archetype,
    and nobody questions whether she lives.

    Because my words are alive,
    and yours? Flat out lies.
    I write so well, I don’t even have to try—
    you write, and everybody asks… why?

    I could hide the woman I love’s name in plain sight…
    like Are you even reading this?
    I’m schooling you, you flunky,
    and still you think you can fuck with me?

    I live in my words,
    and they live back.
    Yours?
    Just echoes, gasping for breath.

    Let me rewind that back…
    I said I could hide her name in plain sight.
    Are you even reading this?
    I’m schooling you, you flunky,
    and still you think you can fuck with me?

    You think you’re on the same page?
    Don’t make me laugh—I’ll leave you shook.
    You’re not even in the same book.
    Don’t insult me.
    Don’t provoke me.
    Don’t test my rage.

    I’ll end up sayin’—
    B.D. get ’em.

    🔴 (B.D. steps from the shadows.)

    Bones snap. Blood goes cold.
    As the tone shifts, I enter the fold.
    My knife hums a pleasant song—
    pleasant for me, because you don’t know
    what you did wrong.

    You choke on smoke and sulfur.
    Blood curdles like spoiled milk.
    I do it for my own, homegrown culture,
    as my words cut through flesh like silk.

    Your blood like ink
    will spill across the page.
    Cold steel my pen,
    my words? Rage.

    And here comes Hex—
    she’s up next.

    🟣 (Hex materializes from nowhere.)

    Ashes to ashes, blood to blood,
    Eye of toad, and witch’s tongue.
    Tail of newt—the spell’s begun.
    You think you’re safe… so you don’t run.

    Safe is an illusion.
    When you write? A delusion.
    When I write?
    A rite.
    An earworm.
    A brain intrusion.

    I’ll twist your thoughts
    like silk spun—
    this isn’t personal,
    I’ll hex you for fun.

    So mote it be

    Step deeper into the shadows and discover the full breadth of my poetry in The Library of Ashes — an archive of ink-stained devotion, dark petals, and threshold poems that linger long after the last candle flickers. Visit The Library of Ashes →

  • Of Ashes & Reverence – Chapter Two: The First Spark | Dark Romance & Sacred Desire

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Dear Reader,

    In this chapter, the spark ignites. The world widens, the stakes sharpen, and desire begins to twist itself into something both beautiful and dangerous. You will witness the first tremors of connection—electric, insistent, threading through marrow and blood alike—as two souls feel the pull of fire and shadow.

    This is a chapter of observation, of recognition, of fleeting glances and subtle gestures that imprint themselves on the bones. Approach with an open heart and steady breath; the pull is irresistible, but the fall is only beginning.

    Step lightly. Step willingly. Step into the first sparks of devotion, temptation, and sacred chaos.

    Woman with wild hair leaning against a shelf, glowing in candlelight, holding a copy of Baudelaire, while a man kneels before her, drawn to her presence. Shadows and smoke swirl, emphasizing desire and danger.
    Desire ignites and sacred chaos begins in Chapter Two of “Of Ashes & Reverence.” The chapel awaits those willing to step into the fire.

    Of Ashes & Reverence

    Chapter Two
    The First Spark

    Before the chapel,
    before the hunger,
    before I knew how willing I was to burn—
    there was her laugh.

    That’s what I remember first.

    It sliced through the hush of the old bookstore like lightning splitting open a storm. Not a giggle. Not a chuckle. A laugh—sharp and wild, as if joy had teeth and she liked the taste of it. Everyone else flinched. I turned my head.

    She was leaning against the poetry shelf, one boot hooked around the other, thumbing through a weathered copy of Baudelaire like she was skimming a diary she’d written in another life. Her hair was a halo of disorder, and her lips were painted the color of spilled wine.

    And gods, she was dangerous.

    I felt it before I understood it. The way the air stilled around her, the way people gave her space without realizing they were doing it. She wasn’t loud—she didn’t need to be. She simply was. Like fire. Like prophecy.

    I watched her for too long.

    She looked up.

    And she saw me.

    No smile. No twitch of surprise. Just eyes that pinned me to the spot. They weren’t seductive—not yet. They were curious. Like she was trying to decide whether I was worth devouring. I held her gaze and forgot how breathing worked.

    “You like watching, don’t you?” she asked.
    Not accusing. Not mocking.
    Just…observant. Dangerous in the way truth always is.

    I opened my mouth to lie.
    Closed it.

    She smirked and tilted her head, and the silver in her ear caught the light like a warning. “Good.”

    She slid the book back onto the shelf and walked away.

    No name. No number.

    Just that laugh again—low, amused—and a glance over her shoulder that would haunt me for weeks. I didn’t follow. I couldn’t. My legs didn’t trust me to stand.

    But from that moment on, I was marked.

    Not by words.
    Not by touch.
    But by possibility.

    The possibility that someone like her could see someone like me—hungry, hidden, half-formed—and still want to light a match.

    I saw her three more times before the chapel.
    Each time, she pulled a little more of me into her gravity.
    Each time, I went willingly.

    Closing Note

    As the story unfolds, boundaries will stretch, trust will be tested, and the fire will blaze hotter. Each moment builds on the last, drawing you deeper into a world where desire and reverence collide. What begins with curiosity and fascination will not remain small for long—brace yourself for the path ahead.

    The chapel waits. The flames are patient. The journey—your surrender—has only just begun.

    —Rowan Evans

    Of Ashes & Reverence

    Chapter One | The Chapel
    Enter the ruined chapel where shadows breathe and desire burns. Chapter One of “Of Ashes & Reverence” introduces Gabriel and Lilith in a hauntingly intimate, Neo-Gothic world where love, pain, and devotion intertwine.

    Chapter Three | Scorchmarks
    Chapter Three of Of Ashes & Reverence leads you into the silence after fire—the place where worship and ruin are inseparable. Lilith and Gabriel step deeper into their sacred chaos, where strength is redefined, and surrender leaves scars that feel like prayer.

  • Of Ashes & Reverence: A Love Letter to the Broken, the Bold, and the Becoming

    Rowan Evans

    Of Ashes & Reverence 
    A Dark Romance Novella 
     
    Lilith has mastered survival. Her world is built from ashes—walls forged in betrayal, silence, and scars that still whisper. To her, love has always meant vulnerability. And vulnerability has always meant pain. 
     
    Gabriel sees past the armor. He’s patient, steady, and everything she’s never dared believe in. Their connection is undeniable—burning hot, terrifyingly tender. But for Lilith, every touch is a test. Every kind word, a crack in her foundation. 
     
    As passion ignites and buried wounds resurface, both must confront the ghosts they carry. For Lilith, it means risking more than just her body—it means surrendering control, and trusting her heart. 
    For Gabriel, it means holding on… without holding too tight. 
     
    A tale of trauma and tenderness, power and vulnerability, Of Ashes & Reverence is a darkly intimate journey through pain, healing, and the radical, luminous act of being truly seen. 
     
    — 
     
    Author’s Note:  
    Welcome to Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism 
     
    — 
     
    This is more than a love story. It is a confession wrapped in shadows, a resurrection of softness from the ashes of pain. 
     
    Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism is a genre I created to hold space for the parts of us that ache and burn and bloom all at once. It is where gothic atmosphere meets emotional vulnerability, where romance is both sanctuary and storm. These stories are written with open wounds and hopeful hearts, where love doesn’t fix the broken—but chooses to stay anyway. 
     
    Here, you’ll find characters who carry trauma like sacred relics, who speak with trembling honesty, who ache for connection even as they fear it. The intimacy is raw, sometimes rough, but always reverent. These are tales of worship and reckoning, of shadows and survival. Of becoming known. 
     
    Of Ashes & Reverence is my first full offering in this genre. It is a story born of my own confessions, fears, and longings—an altar built from grief and devotion. 
     
    If you see yourself here—if you’ve ever felt too much, wanted too deeply, or survived too quietly—then this story is for you. 
     
    With tenderness and truth, 
    Rowan Evans

    More Coming Soon…