✦ Author’s Note ✦

I meant it when I said I’m fine with friendship — I truly am. She means too much to me to ever want to lose what we already have. But being fine doesn’t mean the ache isn’t real. It just means I’ve learned how to carry it with grace.

This poem came from that quiet, conflicted space — the one where truth and longing sit side by side, where I tell myself I’m fine while something deeper trembles just beneath the words. Writing it was my way of admitting both truths at once, even if it makes me feel like a liar for saying I’m okay.

— Rowan Evans

I’m Fine
Poetry by Rowan Evans

I know I’ve said it
probably a thousand times—
across a thousand rhymes,

but she’s
constantly on my mind,
constantly…
like all of the time.

I’m fine,
even though
she’s not mine.

I promise
I’m fine.

No truly,
I’m fine.
It’s just,
she’s with someone—
and…
I can feel
the jealousy.

It burns
just beneath
my ribs.

It’s there. Right in my chest.
It’s not a problem,
it doesn’t mean anything—
but it means everything.

She means…
everything.

She tells me,
she’s taught herself not to love.
The past has taught her,
not to fall in love.
And I understand,
with everything she’s been through.

It makes sense,
but still, even not loving—
she’s with someone else.
And I know she doesn’t love him,
but still, it hurts like hell.

I know I’ve said it
a thousand times,
but she’s in me
like a pulse I cannot turn off.

Every laugh she lets slip,
every glance she casts—
it pricks me like fire.
It burns just beneath my ribs,
hot and unrelenting,
and I clutch at it
like it’s the only thing I own.

She doesn’t love him,
and yet—
it doesn’t matter.
The fact remains,
and it scorches me.

I am supposed to be fine.
I am supposed to look away,
to fold my desire into quiet shadows.
But I cannot.
I watch her,
I feel her,
I carry the ache
of every stolen moment
that will never be mine.

She has taught herself not to love,
and I respect that.
But respect doesn’t heal the hollowness,
doesn’t stop my hands from trembling,
doesn’t stop the way my chest tightens
when I see her smile.

I want her.
Not just her attention,
not just her words—
I want the impossible,
the forbidden,
the unclaimed part of her
that she has never given to anyone.

And I will sit here,
jealous, frantic, trembling,
watching her life unfold without me,
holding every small memory close
like a talisman, like fire against my skin,
like love I cannot release.

And still,
still, I cannot turn away.
I cannot stop seeing her,
cannot stop needing her.
Because she is everything—
and I am nothing
without the impossible hope
that maybe,
just maybe,
she could be mine.

But really…
I’m fine.

It’s fine. I’m fine. And somewhere beneath the ashes, I still mean it.