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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: longing for home

  • The Streets I Walk When I Sleep | A Poem About Dreams, Love, and Emotional Longing

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    I didn’t invent the conversation in this poem.

    That’s what makes this piece feel different to me.

    Usually when I write about dreams, I’m translating emotions into imagery after the fact—trying to capture the atmosphere more than the exact details. But this time, I woke up and realized I could still remember almost everything I said.

    Not perfectly. Dreams never survive intact.

    But the emotional core of it stayed with me long after I woke up.

    The strange thing about recurring dreams is how they stop feeling fictional after a while.

    The streets become familiar. The air feels recognizable. The people inside them start feeling emotionally real in a way that’s difficult to explain to someone else without sounding a little unhinged.

    And that’s part of what this piece explores.

    The disconnect between physical reality and emotional reality.

    I know I’ve never walked through Manila in waking life. I know I’ve never stood face to face with her like that. But emotionally?

    Some part of me feels like I already have.

    That’s the part that’s difficult to articulate.

    Especially because the dream wasn’t dramatic. There was no cinematic confession in the rain. No grand climax.

    It was quiet. Warm. Awkward. Honest.

    And maybe that’s why it affected me so much.

    Because the dream version of me said the things the waking version still struggles to say out loud.

    Not in metaphors. Not hidden inside symbolism.

    Just plainly.

    And then, right before I heard the answer—

    I woke up.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary figure stands on a rain-soaked city street at night beneath warm lights in a dreamlike urban atmosphere.
    Some places live in the heart long before the body ever arrives there.

    The Streets I Walk When I Sleep
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I had a dream last night—

    it’s a line, I’ve written
    a thousand times—

    and I’ll write it
    a thousand times more.

    Because dreams
    don’t feel like things
    that happened
    in my sleep.

    They feel like memories.

    There are times
    I have to remind myself—

    I’ve never been to Tokyo,
    I’ve never walked the streets
    of Manila or Seoul.

    I can’t explain it,
    definitely can’t name it—
    why these connections
    feel so strong.

    Yet, they are the streets
    I walk when I sleep
    and that’s still the same,
    it’s never changed—

    since I was fourteen.

    I’ve just been to
    Manila more lately.

    I had a dream last night…

    It was her and I,
    standing eye to eye—
    and I said everything
    I’ve been too scared to say.

    “I love you,”
    my voice came out
    softer than expected.

    “I always knew,”
    I continued.

    “Since the moment
    something in me changed,
    and you didn’t demand it.
    It just happened.”

    I took her hands
    in mine.

    Sun was gone,
    but you could still feel the heat—
    but the real killer?

    The way the humidity clung,
    making this moment
    sticky sweet.

    “I’ve known
    since the moment I met you
    you were special.”
    I said, my voice near a whisper.

    I felt the way you tensed up.
    You’re not used to this either.

    “It took me six days
    to realize things had changed.
    I wrote that first poem,
    and in my chest, I knew—

    I found home.”

    I felt the tremor in your breath,
    head tilting back
    and we made eye contact.

    Your mouth opened,
    you were about to speak—

    then I woke up.

    Journey in the Hexverse…

    [Memories From a Life Yet to Come]
    Some dreams feel less like fantasy and more like memory. “Memories From a Life Yet to Come” is a reflective free verse poem about longing, displacement, emotional alignment, and the strange comfort of recognizing yourself more clearly in dreams than in waking life

    [Separate Timelines]
    “Separate Timelines” is a surreal and deeply introspective free verse poem about emotional distance, time zones, vulnerability, and the fear of losing a connection that already feels meaningful before the words are ever spoken aloud.

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

  • The Wrong Side of the Globe – A Poem About Feeling Out of Place and Not Belonging

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    There’s a kind of disconnection that goes beyond mood or circumstance.

    It’s not just about having a bad day, or feeling out of place for a moment. It’s deeper than that—like something fundamental doesn’t line up. Like the life you’re living doesn’t match the shape of who you are.

    For a long time, I tried to understand that feeling as something internal. Something to fix, adjust, or push through.

    But this piece comes from questioning that.

    From considering that maybe the discomfort isn’t a flaw—
    maybe it’s misalignment.

    Maybe it’s the result of existing in a space that doesn’t reflect you, doesn’t hear you, doesn’t hold the parts of you that matter.

    And maybe the answer isn’t to force yourself to fit—
    but to find where you already do.

    — Rowan Evans

    Person sitting alone at the edge of a bed at dawn symbolizing feeling out of place and disconnected.
    Sometimes it’s not that you’re lost—it’s that you woke up in a life that was never meant for you.

    The Wrong Side of the Globe
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I wake up—
    not just on
    the wrong side
    of the bed.

    I wake up
    on the wrong
    side of the globe—

    in a life
    that doesn’t fit
    the shape of me

    I wake up
    in a timezone
    my body refuses,
    in a climate
    my skin protests,
    in a country
    my soul didn’t choose.

    I wake up
    as the wrong version
    of myself,
    a silhouette
    in someone else’s dawn,
    a life misaligned
    with its own pulse—

    speaking a language
    this place won’t hear,
    carrying histories
    this soil won’t hold,
    belonging to a map
    not on the wall.

    I wake up…

    in a morning
    meant for someone else.

    In a season
    I wasn’t built for.

    In a story
    I don’t remember choosing.

    I wake up
    already tired
    from carrying a life
    that was never mine…

    I wake up
    wanting a world
    that fits my outline—

    a morning
    that knows my name.

    So I drift off—
    falling into sleep,
    praying that I…

    wake up
    to a place
    that feels like mine,

    a life
    that finally fits—

    the shape of me.

    Journey into the Hexverse!

    [Where the Tide Calls Me]
    What if feeling stuck isn’t about being lost—but about resisting where you’re meant to go? Where the Tide Calls Me explores belonging, movement, and the courage to follow an unseen pull.

    [I Was Already On My Way]
    What if the places that call to you aren’t random? I Was Already On My Way explores identity, travel, and the realization that some paths have been forming long before we recognize them.

    [Of No Single Nation]
    What if belonging isn’t tied to where you’re from? Of No Single Nation explores identity beyond borders, reframing home as something found in connection rather than geography.

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