This piece is my rejection of dramatic love and my acceptance of intentional love.
It’s easy to romanticize sacrifice. It’s harder—and far more meaningful—to choose presence. To choose consistency. To choose to live well and grow, not out of obligation, but because someone inspires you to.
This isn’t about burning out for someone. It’s about moving toward them. Slowly. Intentionally. Alive.
— Rowan Evans
Not a promise to burn— a promise to move closer, alive.
I’ll Keep Living (Moving Toward You) Poetry by Rowan Evans
I won’t say I’d die for you,
that’s cliché,
but what I will say is—
I’ll keep living for you.
I’ll keep being there for you.
I’ll keep moving toward you.
Don’t know what it is,
but I’m drawn to you—
pulled by something soft,
something I can’t name.
I’m just a moth, I guess—
and you’re the flame,
I don’t want tamed.
I want to softly dance in your glow.
I’ve written around this feeling for years — in metaphors, in longing, in coded language about distance and departure.
This is the first time I’ve said it this plainly.
For most of my life, I’ve felt like a visitor in the place I was born. Not in a dramatic way. Not in a rebellious way. Just in a quiet, persistent way that never left.
This piece isn’t about anger. It isn’t about rejection.
It’s about finally naming what I’ve always known— that sometimes “home” is assigned to you, and sometimes it’s something you’re still moving toward.
— Rowan Evans
Sometimes the place you’re born isn’t the place you’re meant to stay.
Just Visiting Poetry by Rowan Evans
I’ve been talking about it a lot lately, this feeling of wanting to escape that I’ve had since I was just a baby. I was forced to call this place home, because this is where I was born— it never felt like home, just a place I was visiting.
Every day in school— I’d recite the pledge, like a good little patriot should. But I didn’t believe in it, there was no allegiance in it.
They say they’re proud to be an American, well me? I’ve never been, because this is just a place to me. I’ve said it before, once in this poem alone— this place has never been my home.
And I’ve lived all across it. Never once have I have felt planted, no roots took hold. Felt like a tourist— in a place I was supposed to belong.
But I’ve known for a while now, my place is not within these borders. This place will never be home for me. But it will always be a part of me. (Sadly.)
This poem came from a recurring dream and a familiar pull — the quiet urge to move toward something that feels meaningful, even if the destination isn’t fully defined yet. It isn’t about a place so much as the feeling of possibility, of momentum returning, of wanting to grow into someone worthy of the journey ahead.
Some shores are literal. Some are emotional. Some only exist because someone made you believe they might.
— Rowan Evans
Some journeys begin long before you ever leave—when the shore starts calling you back to yourself.
Distant Shores Poetry by Rowan Evans
It’s kind of wild how,
you’ve been in my dreams
for a while now.
You’re always radiant as ever,
you look like heaven—but better.
You inspire every poem, word and letter,
I write them with love, respect and care.
If I could, I would always be there—
I swear
I will cross oceans,
whether I catch a jet,
swim or stowaway.
I swear
I will cross these waves,
and we will walk the same shore
some day.
I swear—
You make me, want to be
a better me.
To strive for more,
instead of giving up
like I had before.
I had allowed myself
to become trapped,
inside the borders
of my mind and
country.
You added fuel to a fire
that had been silently burning.
Right there, inside my chest.
The embers smoldered in silence,
until you, and the fire reignited—
and now it roars.
Once again, I dream of walking
distant shores. But now…
Now, I want them to be…
[Toward Somewhere I Can Breathe] A poem about feeling disconnected since fourteen, longing for somewhere that feels like home, and finally understanding that the journey isn’t about escape — it’s about alignment.
[Disconnected Since Fourteen] A confessional poem about growing up disconnected—from place, from home, from belonging—and the quiet realization that the signal was never stable to begin with.
[Still Tilting Elsewhere] A reflection on growing up with a compass that never pointed home—tracing the quiet rebellion of longing, the patience of dreams, and the feeling of always being angled toward somewhere else.
This piece is about a feeling I’ve struggled to name for most of my life — a feeling that I have tried to explain more recently — a quiet but persistent disconnect that began when I was fourteen.
It isn’t about hating where I’m from. It isn’t about romanticizing somewhere else.
It’s about that internal shift — the moment you realize you feel unrooted in a place where everyone else seems firmly planted.
For years, I thought I was running away. Now I understand I’ve been moving toward something.
Whether that “home” is a city, a country, a person, or a version of myself I haven’t fully stepped into yet — I don’t know.
But I know this: I am not lost anymore. I am in motion.
— Rowan Evans
Sometimes home isn’t where you started. Sometimes it’s where you finally breathe.
Toward Somewhere I Can Breathe Poetry by Rowan Evans
I’ve tried my whole life
to explain it.
This disconnect,
I’ve felt since
2004.
How can I make it
any more clear?
I just don’t belong here.
I’m going to try
and try to make it
make sense.
I was fourteen,
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
on the screen.
But that’s not the important part.
Inside—
I could feel
threads fray,
and they
already existed
in decay.
But I learned quickly,
in 2007 exactly—
there is Filth in the Beauty,
and the reverse
can be the same.
That’s when
my view of the
world changed,
and became
cemented.
Something shifted,
vision cleared—
and everything
I missed before,
just appeared.
Where everyone
around me,
seemed rooted
in the here.
And I—
would close my eyes,
and wish upon
shooting stars.
I wanted out,
I wanted to leave,
go somewhere far.
I knew it would take time,
I needed things to align.
But now I know
what I’m moving toward,
what I’m working for.
I’m moving toward home.
A place, where I belong.
Maybe when I finally leave,
I’ll touch down in the Philippines
to walk Manila’s streets,
and finally be able to breathe.
This poem traces the moment when disconnection stopped being temporary and started feeling structural. At fourteen, I didn’t just feel out of place—I felt offline. Like my signal never quite reached the world I was standing in.
The language of technology felt like the closest mirror for that experience: dropped signals, endless queues, systems that never respond. This isn’t nostalgia, and it isn’t blame—it’s recognition. Naming the feeling that followed me for years before I understood what it was.
Some people search for belonging. Some of us search for a connection that was never stable to begin with.
— Rowan Evans
Some disconnections start early—and never fully resolve.
Disconnected Since Fourteen (Lost in Queue) Poetry by Rowan Evans
I used to sit alone, lost in thoughts of far off places—far from… home.
I’d write about every one, write about them in my… poems.
The way longing bled into art, art bled the words from my heart. It was the truth spilling— feeling homeless, since I was fourteen.
Felt disconnected, like the Wi-Fi dropped. Mind static, dramatic, screaming like… dial-up.
Trying to connect to somewhere that never answers. Server overloaded, lost in queue— endless, connection loop.
I do not belong here. Everything feels wrong here.
Some people grow up knowing exactly where they belong.
Others grow up carrying a quiet sense of elsewhere—something felt long before it’s understood.
This piece traces that feeling as it moved through me over time: the early moments of disconnection, the private planning, the slow patience of a dream that never burned out. It isn’t about leaving a place as much as it is about realizing that orientation matters more than arrival.
Not all rebellions are loud.
Some of them are lived quietly, for years, while you learn how to wait without letting the dream die.
Some dreams don’t disappear. They learn how to wait.
Still Tilting Elsewhere Poetry by Rowan Evans
I find myself drifting through my thoughts, not lost this time.
I remember fourteen. Hi Hi Puffy— Ami and Yumi on the screen, seeing Tokyo streets, thinking “I hate this place.” It was the first time I felt the disconnect.
Suddenly, I was hyperaware— I didn’t belong here.
I remember fifteen. The first time I started planning. The first time I dreamed of jet engines, of taking off, making escape.
I remember sixteen. Started speaking, manifesting— wishing it into existence. I remember seventeen, when my dream, became a quiet rebellion.
And I was only becoming more aware, I didn’t belong here.
I remember eighteen. Applying for a job, I knew I wouldn’t get. Simply for the chance to split. It was more about the “what if’s,” what if they saw something— what if they took a chance?
And then— found family from the Philippines. Two girls of thirteen, they became like nieces to me. They were the spark that stoked the ember, that would simmer just beneath the surface.
It’s been eighteen years since then.
Eighteen years, and the ember never cooled. It lived in the quiet places— behind decisions, beneath routines, inside every map I drew that didn’t include here.
And the dream didn’t fade. It learned patience. It learned silence. It learned to wait without dying.
Now, I feel the shift again— the same quiet pull, the same soft rebellion, older now, but no less certain.
I still carry that fourteen-year-old like a compass in my chest. I carry that seventeen-year-old like a promise I haven’t kept yet. I’ve grown, but the compass never changed. Every version of me still tilts toward somewhere… else.
I’d been stuck in my head for days—looping memories, fogged thoughts, the usual spiral.
Then I had a dream.
In it, someone I care deeply about cut through the noise in the bluntest, most effective way possible. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t poetic. But it worked.
This poem came from that moment—the realization that sometimes the way forward isn’t overthinking, but following the one thread that still feels steady.
Even through the fog.
Sometimes the way out of your head is just one honest thread—and the courage to follow it.
The Thread That Led Me Home Poetry by Rowan Evans
The fog rolls over hills,
and a chill clings
to my mind.
Memories linger
in flickering fragments,
clinging static—
the kind that hums
behind the eyes,
buzzing with moments
I thought I buried
but never really left.
They circle back—
whispers caught
between stations,
half-formed voices
I almost recognize
but can’t quiet name.
Threads of memory
tangled in the mist,
pulling me back
to places
I never meant to revisit.
I stumble through playgrounds,
bumping off walls
as I march down the hall.
A single thread,
I’ve begun to follow—
It leads through memory,
after memory.
Twisting and turning,
it knots—
and I pause,
fingers trembling
over the tangle,
wondering what unravels
if I pull too hard.
I run fingers
over threads.
Gripping soft,
pulling slow—
I watch
as the string
slips free—
and it hums,
like it’s guiding me.
So I follow.
Step after step,
one foot
in front
of the other.
I step and stumble
through fog,
thick as my thoughts.
And when
I feel lost,
my fingers tighten
grabbing the string
like a lifeline.
It’s the only guide
through my mind.
I stumble through,
snapping twigs
and branches.
The rustle of
rotting leaves
under feet,
until I see it.
A light,
a clearing.
And when I reach it,
when I find
the strings conclusion—
what do I see?
You.
A smile.
Home.
Closing Note
Yesterday’s poem was about the weight of memory. This one is about the moment something — or someone — breaks through that weight. Not to fix it, not to erase it, but to remind me that I don’t have to walk through the fog alone.
Journey into the Hexverse
[Memory Lane Has No Exit] With my birthday approaching, I found myself trapped inside my mind—wandering memory lane, revisiting love, loss, and the moments that built me. This poem is a reflection on betrayal, survival, and the quiet realization that drifting isn’t the same as healing.
Between Sun & Shore was written in February of last year, during a season where I was learning what it felt like to be seen gently instead of weathered. It came from a place of quiet awe—of realizing that sometimes love doesn’t arrive like a storm, but like warmth. Like light finding its way through the cracks you thought would always stay broken.
This poem is about that in-between space: where grief softens, where healing begins, where you are no longer only the tide or the storm—but something new, something held. It’s about the moment you realize that someone hasn’t come to save you… they’ve come to grow beside you.
Where storms soften and light learns your name.
Between Sun & Shore Poetry by Rowan Evans
I once drifted like a wayward tide, Lost in the waves, nowhere to hide. Storms had carved their name in me, Each scar a tale, each wound a sea.
Then you arrived—a golden ray, Like sunrise spilling into the bay.
Your voice, a hymn the wind would weave, Soft as the hum of the monsoon’s reprieve. You traced my ruins, stone by stone, And turned them into sacred homes.
Now every ripple speaks your name, Each whispered breeze, each dancing flame.
Like sampaga’s quiet grace, You bloom where sorrow left its trace. Between Sun and Shore, love grew— A bridge of light, leading to you.
Sometimes, the mind cannot stop wandering to the one who lingers in your heart. This little reflection captures that quiet, unending presence—the person who inhabits every corner of thought, even in silence.
— Rowan Evans
Every thought between—where silence still carries your presence.
Every Thought Between Poetry by Rowan Evans
There is not a moment
that you do not
cross my mind.
You are my first thought,
and my last—
and every thought between.
Poetry by Rowan Evans 