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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: longing

  • Pointing Me Home (No Metaphor Left Behind) | A Poem About Dreams, Hope & Finding Home

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem became the quiet conclusion to a trilogy I never intended to write.

    Crossing the Sea was about direction.

    Only Waiting was about the reason I needed that direction in the first place.

    This piece asks a different question:

    How do you keep moving when you haven’t arrived yet?

    For me, the answer has always been dreams.

    Not because I confuse them with reality, but because they remind me that another reality is possible.

    I’ve written about dreams for years. They rarely feel random to me. They often feel like rehearsals—small glimpses of a life my mind already believes exists somewhere beyond the horizon.

    The city in this poem isn’t a specific city.

    The moon isn’t really the moon.

    Even after spending two poems trying to strip away metaphor, I found myself sitting beside it again.

    I think that’s because hope has always spoken to me symbolically.

    When I’m awake, I know where I am.

    When I’m asleep, I remember where I’m going.

    The dream doesn’t replace reality.

    It sustains me until reality catches up.

    The final image—a dream folded into my chest like a map—is probably the clearest way I’ve ever described hope.

    Hope isn’t certainty.

    It isn’t arrival.

    It’s carrying the direction with you, even when you’re still standing at the beginning of the journey.

    And maybe that’s what this trilogy has been trying to say all along.

    Sometimes home begins as a place.

    Sometimes it becomes an ache.

    Sometimes…

    it’s simply the direction you’re already walking.

    — Rowan Evans

    A lone figure sits beneath a full moon where an ocean shoreline transitions into quiet city streets, holding a folded map while reflecting on hope, dreams, and the journey toward home.
    “Sometimes home isn’t where you’re standing—it’s the direction you’re already walking.” 🌙🗺️

    Pointing Me Home (No Metaphor Left Behind)
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Tick tock, tick tock—
    that’s the sound of the clock.
    I listen as I wait for the escape,
    a simple trip, brought on by sleep.
    Because I only feel at home
    in my dreams.

    So as I close my eyes
    and my head hits the pillow—
    I follow the moon
    to the ocean’s edge,
    I listen to the tide—
    I follow it in stride
    until I find where it’s pulling me.

    With every step,
    I move deeper in.
    Slowly sand turns to concrete
    beneath my feet,
    as the beach transitions
    into city streets.

    Streetlights flicker
    like they’re remembering
    they used to be stars.

    The hum of the city
    folds into the sound of waves,
    each echo a reminder
    of where I started
    and where I’m going.

    I walk until the moon
    hangs between buildings
    like it’s lost too—

    like it’s looking someone to talk to.

    So I sit and conversate,
    I tell the moon all about the quiet ache—
    the feeling that I need to change
    my environment to one that aligns
    more with what I feel inside.

    And the moon sits with me,
    just listening—so I talk some more.
    Out of my heart, the words just pour.
    I spill every secret, I hold nothing back
    until I feel like I might collapse.

    The moon listens,
    patient as ever,
    its light softening
    the edges of my thoughts.

    And when I finally fall silent,
    breath trembling,
    chest heavy—

    it tilts itself
    just enough
    to remind me
    I’m not alone
    in the places I wander.

    Tick tock, tick tock.

    A return to the rhythm of the clock,
    interrupting the talk—
    the moon’s light gives way
    to the sun’s rays,
    I’m still stuck in this place—

    but I’m only waiting
    until I can cross the sea,
    Pacific and the Philippine.

    Until then,
    I carry the dream like a map,
    folded in my chest—

    pointing me home.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Crossing the Sea (No Metaphor Left Behind)]
    A deeply personal poem about relocation, longing, and the realization that some truths naturally arrive through metaphor—even when we try to leave it behind.

    [Only Waiting (No Metaphor Left Behind)]
    The second poem in the No Metaphor Left Behind series, exploring the quiet ache of growing up in a place that never truly felt like home—and finally saying aloud what years of metaphor had been trying to express.

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

  • Caller ID: Destiny | A Poem About Dreams, Belonging, and Finding Home

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some dreams stay with me because of what happens in them.

    Others stay because of how they make me feel after I wake up.

    This poem belongs to the second kind.

    Lately, I’ve found myself dreaming about places I’ve never lived but somehow recognize. Cities that feel familiar before I arrive. Streets that carry a strange sense of belonging. When I wake, there’s often a brief moment where those places feel more like home than the room I’m actually in.

    That feeling became the heart of this piece.

    The image of a phone call arrived almost immediately. Not as a literal phone, but as the unmistakable sensation that something beyond my current life keeps trying to get my attention. The title came from asking myself what that call would look like if it appeared on a screen.

    Caller ID: Destiny.

    The final stanza is probably the most honest part of the poem.

    It’s not really about wanting to sleep.

    It’s about wanting to wake up somewhere that feels like I’m finally living the life I’ve been moving toward for years.

    Sometimes dreams aren’t an escape from reality.

    Sometimes they’re reminders that another future still feels possible.

    — Rowan Evans

    A person standing alone on a quiet street at dawn holding a glowing phone that reads "Caller ID: Destiny," while a luminous dreamlike city shines in the distance.
    Sometimes the loudest call doesn’t come from a phone—it comes from the life waiting for you beyond the horizon.

    Caller ID: Destiny
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    As the haze of sleep
    finally leaves,
    I find myself missing
    the dreams.

    In my sleep
    I walk the streets
    in the places
    that are calling me.

    It’s like my phone is ringing
    off the hook—

    caller id reads:
    Destiny.

    Message received:
    “Time to leave.”

    I’m done begging
    where I’m from—
    to notice me.

    I feel seen
    in my dreams,
    and invisible
    in my streets.

    So I’d rather sleep
    than be awake
    in this state.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Crossing the Sea (No Metaphor Left Behind)]
    A deeply personal poem about relocation, longing, and the realization that some truths naturally arrive through metaphor—even when we try to leave it behind.

    [Only Waiting (No Metaphor Left Behind)]
    The second poem in the No Metaphor Left Behind series, exploring the quiet ache of growing up in a place that never truly felt like home—and finally saying aloud what years of metaphor had been trying to express.

    [Returning to My Bones]
    Some dreams fade the moment we wake. Others leave behind emotions that linger long after reality returns. Returning to My Bones explores the strange grief of leaving a dream that felt real enough to matter.

    [Before My Feet Touch the Floor]
    What happens when your dreams feel more real than your waking life? Before My Feet Touch the Floor explores the strange grief of waking up, the lingering memory of dream selves, and the quiet question of which version of us is truly real.

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

  • Only Waiting (No Metaphor Left Behind) | A Poem About Home, Belonging, and Leaving

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem is the second part of an experiment I started in Crossing the Sea—an attempt to write without leaning on metaphor, or at least to notice when metaphor appears even when I’m trying not to use it.

    The first piece focused on direction: the place I’m moving toward, the literal ocean I have to cross to get there. But I realized that before I could talk honestly about where I’m going, I needed to talk honestly about why I’m leaving.

    That’s what this poem is.

    It’s the part I’ve always written around instead of through.
    The part I’ve buried under tides, distance, storms, and moonlight.
    The part I’ve hinted at for years without ever saying plainly.

    The truth is simple, even if it took me a long time to say it:

    I’ve never felt at home in the country where I grew up.

    Not in childhood.
    Not in adulthood.
    Not in all the years in between.

    It’s a quiet ache—persistent, steady, familiar.
    Not dramatic, not catastrophic, just a sense of misalignment I’ve carried since I was fourteen. A feeling of being held in a place I never belonged to, waiting for a life that didn’t start here.

    I’ve called it restlessness.
    I’ve called it longing.
    I’ve called it distance.
    Eventually, I called it the ocean.

    But naming it directly felt necessary.
    Not to erase the metaphors, but to understand what they were protecting.

    This poem is that attempt.
    Not a rejection of metaphor, but a recognition of the truth beneath it.

    — Rowan Evans

    A traveler stands at the edge of a familiar neighborhood looking toward a distant horizon with a suitcase in hand.
    Sometimes leaving isn’t running away. Sometimes it’s finally walking toward the place that feels like home.

    Only Waiting (No Metaphor Left Behind)
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Turn the page,
    I’ve got more to say.

    I’ll try again
    not to hide behind
    metaphors
    and coded lines.

    Last time—
    I talked about the destination,
    the place I’m moving toward.

    This time—
    I’m going to talk about the ache.
    The persistent empty feeling
    that I’ve been feeling since I was fourteen.

    I’ve written about it before
    woven in metaphors.
    But this time I’m going to try
    and say it plain.

    It’s the ache of living in a place
    that never felt like mine.

    Not once.

    Not in childhood,
    not in adulthood,
    not in all the years in between.

    People talk about home
    like it’s a given—

    a birthplace,
    a neighborhood,
    a country that shaped them.

    But I never felt shaped by this place.

    Only held in it.
    Only waiting.

    I learned early
    that you can grow up somewhere
    and still feel like a visitor.

    You can know every street
    and still feel lost.

    You can speak the language
    and still feel unheard.

    Since fourteen,
    I’ve carried this quiet emptiness—
    not dramatic,
    not catastrophic,
    just a steady sense
    that I was meant to be somewhere else,
    and somehow ended up here instead.

    I used to call it restlessness.

    Then longing.

    Then distance.

    Then the ocean.

    But the truth is simpler:
    I’ve never felt at home
    in the country that raised me.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Crossing the Sea (No Metaphor Left Behind)]
    A deeply personal poem about relocation, longing, and the realization that some truths naturally arrive through metaphor—even when we try to leave it behind.

    [Translating What I Feel]
    A poem about the invisible process of turning emotion into imagery, imagery into language, and language into poetry. An intimate reflection on creativity, loneliness, and twenty-three years of learning to translate what the heart feels.

    [Maybe You’ll Want Me Too]
    A poem about the subtle shift from knowing someone to constantly thinking about them. Through humor, metaphor, and confession, Maybe You’ll Want Me Too explores affection, attachment, and the fragile hope that being wanted might matter more than being needed.

    [Recognizes Home]
    A free-verse poem exploring the difference between love as dependency and love as choice. It challenges the idea that love must be need-based, instead centering the quiet strength of choosing someone while still remaining whole on your own.

    [Not Rebuilding You]
    A poem about love as an act of presence rather than rescue. Through construction imagery, Not Rebuilding You explores trust, devotion, emotional safety, and the quiet work of building a foundation strong enough for healing to grow.

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

  • Crossing the Sea (No Metaphor Left Behind) | A Poem About Relocation, Distance, and Finding Home

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem began as an experiment in restraint.

    I wanted to see what would happen if I stopped relying on metaphor—the oceans, tides, moons, and distant imagery that so often shape the way I write—and instead said things as directly as I could.

    What I discovered is that I don’t really think in a “non-metaphorical” way.

    Even when I try to remove symbolism, my mind still reaches for it. The language of distance, direction, and crossing appears naturally because that is how I process emotional states: spatially, geographically, in motion.

    So the poem became something else.

    Not an escape from metaphor, but an awareness of it.

    A recognition that even when I say “I won’t use the ocean this time,” I still understand my life through movement across it.

    This piece lives in that tension between clarity and instinct—between what I am trying to say plainly, and the language my mind naturally returns to.

    And in the end, it admits something simple:

    Sometimes the clearest way to say the truth… is still through the shape of the thing you tried to leave behind.

    — Rowan Evans

    A lone traveler stands on a Pacific shoreline looking toward distant islands across the ocean at sunrise.
    Some distances are measured in miles. Others are measured in becoming.

    Crossing the Sea (No Metaphor Left Behind)
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I am going to try
    something that terrifies me—
    that most of the time,
    would leave me paralyzed.

    I am going to try
    and say everything
    I hold inside—
    no metaphors
    to hide behind
    this time.

    I’m not where
    I want to be
    and part of me,
    thinks I’ll never be.

    I know that’s just
    fear and doubt—

    just because part of me
    thinks it, doesn’t make it true.

    Relocating
    is just taking
    longer than I wanted it to.

    But I know the direction.
    The destination is clear—
    I just got to get there.

    I got to leave here.

    This isn’t a new feeling—
    I’ve said this all before,
    buried in metaphors.

    Hidden behind symbolism.

    This is where
    I’d put the ocean
    and the tide,
    a way to describe
    the distance.

    Between where I am
    and where I want to be—
    and to get there,
    I have to cross the sea.

    Not a metaphor,
    I mean that literally—
    Pacific and the Philippine.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Translating What I Feel]
    A poem about the invisible process of turning emotion into imagery, imagery into language, and language into poetry. An intimate reflection on creativity, loneliness, and twenty-three years of learning to translate what the heart feels.

    [Recognizes Home]
    A free-verse poem exploring the difference between love as dependency and love as choice. It challenges the idea that love must be need-based, instead centering the quiet strength of choosing someone while still remaining whole on your own.

    [Not Rebuilding You]
    A poem about love as an act of presence rather than rescue. Through construction imagery, Not Rebuilding You explores trust, devotion, emotional safety, and the quiet work of building a foundation strong enough for healing to grow.

    [The Language Her Soul Speaks]
    What if love isn’t about being understood, but learning to understand someone else? “The Language Her Soul Speaks” is a free verse poem about intimacy, communication, curiosity, and the desire to know another person beyond the limits of language.

    [Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3)]
    A moonlit shoreline, a rowboat full of ducks, a piggybank with no cents, and a confession hidden in plain sight. Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3) explores how humor, wordplay, and absurdity can become a side door to vulnerability when the truth feels too difficult to say directly.

    [L Words & Heart]
    A playful, self-aware poem about love, longing, loyalty, and the quiet ways another person can reshape our inner world. What begins as humor slowly reveals a heartfelt confession about affection, imagination, and the faces that linger in our dreams.

    [I’ll Be There to See Your Sunrise]
    Love has never come easily to me. This poem explores the fear, vulnerability, and quiet courage required to stay emotionally present when connection begins to matter deeply. “I’ll Be There to See Your Sunrise” is about choosing love despite the risk of heartbreak—and promising to remain long enough to witness someone fully.

    [Altar and Roses]
    A gothic free verse poem about poetic identity, recurring symbolism, devotion, and the quiet humanity beneath dramatic imagery.

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

  • Returning to My Bones | A Poem About Dreams, Waking, and Quiet Grief

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    I’ve written a lot of poems about dreams.

    At this point, it’s probably one of the most consistent threads running through my work.

    The reason is simple:

    Dreams don’t feel imaginary to me.

    They feel remembered.

    Not while I’m fully awake. Not after I’ve had time to process them. But in those first moments between sleeping and waking, there’s often a strange overlap where the emotions arrive before reality does.

    For a brief moment, everything feels true.

    The conversation happened. The place existed. The person was there.

    Then awareness returns.

    The room comes back. The walls come back. The weight of the body comes back.

    And with it comes the realization that none of it happened.

    That’s the feeling this poem is trying to capture.

    Not the dream itself, but the return from it.

    The title became the key.

    Because waking up doesn’t feel like opening my eyes.

    It feels like returning to my bones.

    Returning to gravity. Returning to limitation. Returning to the version of reality that can be touched and verified.

    The strange thing is that the emotions don’t disappear when the dream does.

    The dream fades.

    The feelings stay.

    And sometimes that lingering feeling creates a kind of grief that is difficult to explain to people who don’t experience dreams this way.

    A quiet grief.

    Not because something real was lost.

    But because, for a moment, it felt real enough to matter.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary figure sits beside a moonlit bay as the dreamlike shoreline gradually fades into a quiet bedroom, symbolizing the emotional transition from dreaming to waking.
    Some dreams disappear with the sunrise. Others stay with us long after we’ve returned to our bones.

    Returning to My Bones
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    The moon shimmers over the bay,
    suspended in the sky—
    the way I feel suspended in her eyes.

    And it makes me feel crazy,
    because she’s never looked at me—
    not really, not in reality.

    It’s only happened in dreams.

    That’s when I drift
    between awake—
    and asleep.

    This is when
    my mind
    starts to
    wander.

    Then it snaps.

    I’m back in my room again.

    The moon loses its shimmer,
    the bay fades from view.
    My body tenses as I become
    aware again,
    of the mattress beneath me—

    of the walls that enclose me.

    I feel the weight pressing in.
    The reality of returning
    to my bones.
    It’s a quiet grief—
    realizing that the emotions
    will linger,
    but the truth is
    it never happened.

    And somehow,
    that hurts the most.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Maybe You’ll Want Me Too]
    A poem about the subtle shift from knowing someone to constantly thinking about them. Through humor, metaphor, and confession, Maybe You’ll Want Me Too explores affection, attachment, and the fragile hope that being wanted might matter more than being needed.

    [Before My Feet Touch the Floor]
    What happens when your dreams feel more real than your waking life? Before My Feet Touch the Floor explores the strange grief of waking up, the lingering memory of dream selves, and the quiet question of which version of us is truly real.

    [Recognizes Home]
    A free-verse poem exploring the difference between love as dependency and love as choice. It challenges the idea that love must be need-based, instead centering the quiet strength of choosing someone while still remaining whole on your own.

    [Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3)]
    A moonlit shoreline, a rowboat full of ducks, a piggybank with no cents, and a confession hidden in plain sight. Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3) explores how humor, wordplay, and absurdity can become a side door to vulnerability when the truth feels too difficult to say directly.

    [L Words & Heart]
    A playful, self-aware poem about love, longing, loyalty, and the quiet ways another person can reshape our inner world. What begins as humor slowly reveals a heartfelt confession about affection, imagination, and the faces that linger in our dreams.

    [Just Before Waking]
    A street that feels familiar. A life that hasn’t happened yet. Just Beyond Waking explores the fragile space between dreams, memory, longing, and the quiet feeling that some futures are already waiting for us.

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

  • Maybe You’ll Want Me Too | A Poem About Affection, Attachment, and Being Chosen

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some poems arrive because of a grand idea.

    Others arrive because a single sentence refuses to leave.

    This was one of those.

    The poem began when I remembered a conversation. A joke, really. Someone once described themselves as being “like a drug” and we laughed about it. At the time, it felt playful, exaggerated, harmless.

    But memory has a way of revisiting things from a different angle.

    When I thought about that conversation later, I realized what interested me wasn’t the comparison itself. It was the experience of slowly realizing that someone has become part of your everyday thoughts without you noticing exactly when it happened.

    One day they’re simply someone you know.

    Then they’re someone you think about.

    Then they’re someone who quietly occupies space in your mind when nothing else is demanding your attention.

    The drug metaphor gave me a doorway into the poem, but it isn’t really what the poem is about.

    It’s about affection.

    It’s about attachment.

    It’s about the strange vulnerability of admitting that someone matters.

    More than that, it’s about the difference between being needed and being wanted.

    Need can feel transactional.

    Want feels chosen.

    The final lines became the emotional center for me because they capture a hope I think many people carry but rarely say aloud:

    Not that someone has to stay.

    Not that someone owes us their attention.

    Just that maybe, if given the choice, they would choose us too.

    Like a lot of my recent work, humor and metaphor show up first. They’re familiar territory. They’re comfortable. They make difficult things easier to approach.

    But beneath the jokes, the poem is doing what many of my poems eventually do.

    It’s confessing.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary figure standing beneath glowing city lights as colorful streams of light drift through the air, symbolizing affection, attachment, and lingering thoughts of someone special
    Sometimes affection arrives quietly—slipping into your thoughts until you realize someone has become part of your everyday world. ✨

    Maybe You’ll Want Me Too
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I remember when you said—
    you are like a drug.

    It was all laughs
    about your exes being hooked,
    still shook by the thoughts of you.

    But I was getting second-hand
    contact highs—

    now I feel addicted too.

    It’s like you’re in my bloodstream.
    You’ve rewired my brain,
    rebalanced the chemical compounds—
    you’re in nearly every single thought now.

    I try to hide it behind metaphors
    and jokes—an attempt to mask
    the fragile hope—

    that you won’t need me,
    but maybe you’ll want me too.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Recognizes Home]
    A free-verse poem exploring the difference between love as dependency and love as choice. It challenges the idea that love must be need-based, instead centering the quiet strength of choosing someone while still remaining whole on your own.

    [Not Rebuilding You]
    A poem about love as an act of presence rather than rescue. Through construction imagery, Not Rebuilding You explores trust, devotion, emotional safety, and the quiet work of building a foundation strong enough for healing to grow.

    [The Language Her Soul Speaks]
    What if love isn’t about being understood, but learning to understand someone else? “The Language Her Soul Speaks” is a free verse poem about intimacy, communication, curiosity, and the desire to know another person beyond the limits of language.

    [Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3)]
    A moonlit shoreline, a rowboat full of ducks, a piggybank with no cents, and a confession hidden in plain sight. Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3) explores how humor, wordplay, and absurdity can become a side door to vulnerability when the truth feels too difficult to say directly.

    [L Words & Heart]
    A moonlit shoreline, a rowboat full of ducks, a piggybank with no cents, and a confession hidden in plain sight. Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3) explores how humor, wordplay, and absurdity can become a side door to vulnerability when the truth feels too difficult to say directly.

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

  • The Language Her Soul Speaks | A Poem About Love, Understanding, and Connection

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This is one of the shortest poems I’ve written in a while, but it carries an idea I’ve been circling for years.

    A lot of love poems focus on being understood.

    Wanting someone to see you. Wanting someone to know you. Wanting someone to understand the parts of yourself that feel difficult to explain.

    Those desires are real.

    But as I was writing this piece, I realized my attention was pointed in the opposite direction.

    I wasn’t thinking about being understood.

    I was thinking about understanding.

    About how every person carries an internal world that exists beyond simple translation. A private rhythm. A natural cadence. A way of thinking and feeling that doesn’t always survive the journey into spoken language.

    I think that’s part of why I write so often about language, communication, and connection.

    Not because I believe perfect understanding is possible.

    But because the attempt matters.

    Because choosing to learn someone—to listen carefully, to pay attention, to remain curious about who they are beneath the surface—is one of the most meaningful forms of affection I know.

    The title came first.

    “The Language Her Soul Speaks.”

    Not because I believe souls literally have languages, but because some people seem to move through the world with a rhythm that feels uniquely their own.

    This poem is about wanting to learn that rhythm.

    Not to change it.

    Not to possess it.

    Just to understand it a little better than I did yesterday.

    — Rowan Evans

    Two figures stand beneath a moonlit sky as glowing strands of language and light flow between them, symbolizing understanding, communication, and emotional connection.
    “Not because I need to be understood, but because I want to understand.” — The Language Her Soul Speaks by Rowan Evans

    The Language Her Soul Speaks
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I want to whisper secrets
    in the language her soul speaks,
    touch the edges of her mind
    in the natural cadence
    in which she thinks—

    not translated,
    not borrowed,
    not filtered
    through the limits of my tongue.

    Not because I need
    to be understood,
    but because I want to understand.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [L Words & Heart]
    A playful, self-aware poem about love, longing, loyalty, and the quiet ways another person can reshape our inner world. What begins as humor slowly reveals a heartfelt confession about affection, imagination, and the faces that linger in our dreams.

    [Just Beyond Waking]
    A street that feels familiar. A life that hasn’t happened yet. Just Beyond Waking explores the fragile space between dreams, memory, longing, and the quiet feeling that some futures are already waiting for us.

    [I’ll Be There to See Your Sunrise]
    Love has never come easily to me. This poem explores the fear, vulnerability, and quiet courage required to stay emotionally present when connection begins to matter deeply. “I’ll Be There to See Your Sunrise” is about choosing love despite the risk of heartbreak—and promising to remain long enough to witness someone fully.

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

  • L Words & Heart | A Poem About Love, Longing, Loyalty & Being Seen

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece began as a joke.

    Or at least, I thought it did.

    The opening voice is intentionally playful—awkward, self‑deprecating, a little chaotic, prone to wandering off into side comments before finding its way back again. In many ways, it feels closer to how I actually think than some of my more polished or serious pieces.

    But underneath the humor is something sincere.

    I’ve never been particularly good at saying important things directly. Sometimes vulnerability arrives disguised as a joke. Sometimes affection hides behind wordplay. Sometimes the safest way to admit what you’re feeling is to make someone laugh first.

    The title comes from a simple realization: when I think about certain people, my thoughts tend to orbit the same things.

    Love. Longing. Loyalty.

    The L words.

    And heart.

    The final section is intentionally quieter than everything that comes before it. The jokes fall away, the distractions disappear, and what remains is the truth the speaker was circling the entire time: the way another person can take up space in your imagination, your creativity, and your inner world long before they ever occupy the same physical space.

    Sometimes affection doesn’t arrive as grand declarations.

    Sometimes it arrives as a face that appears when you close your eyes.
    A voice you hear in silence.
    A shoreline you keep finding in your dreams.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary figure standing on a moonlit shoreline while waves roll in beneath a dreamy twilight sky.
    Some people arrive in your thoughts quietly—then somehow become part of every dream, every poem, and every beat of your heart.

    L Words & Heart
    Poetry by Rowan Evan

    I’m just a quirky, mother—
    not a fighter, but a lover.
    I’m not brave or whatever,
    I bite tongues,
    holding words like lips
    with padlocks.

    I’ve never been a fan of change,
    but I want things to change—
    I want my life rearranged,
    I want to be seen as normal
    not strange—
    I want to be me
    and accepted,
    because I’m not as strange
    as you think—
    I’ve seen Stranger Things.

    (Actually, no I haven’t.
    I never got into the show.
    But I digress…)

    I’ve got things I want to say,
    got things I want you to know.

    When I think about you
    it’s all L words and heart,
    you reshaped my art.
    So I close my eyes
    and I see your face.
    In silence, I hear your voice—
    and in dreams I walk your shores.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Just Beyond Waking]
    A street that feels familiar. A life that hasn’t happened yet. Just Beyond Waking explores the fragile space between dreams, memory, longing, and the quiet feeling that some futures are already waiting for us.

    [Twin Suns, Sister Moons]
    A poem about distance, longing, and the quiet pull of someone who lives beneath a different sky. Between twin suns and sister moons, the heart keeps reaching for home.

    [It’s You I Choose]
    A poem about devotion, vulnerability, and the quiet decision to stay. Sometimes love isn’t certainty—it is choosing someone anyway.

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

  • Just Beyond Waking | A Poem About Dreams, Destiny, and Future Love

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece came from the feeling of recognizing something before you fully understand it.

    Not memory exactly.
    Not déjà vu.
    Something softer and stranger than that.

    I’ve always been fascinated by those moments where emotion arrives before explanation—when a place, a person, or a feeling seems deeply familiar even though you know you’ve never truly experienced it before. Like your mind is brushing against a future version of your life before you’ve physically reached it.

    That became the emotional center of this poem.

    The shifting between bedroom and street, dream and waking, reality and unreality, was meant to feel unstable on purpose. I wanted the speaker to exist in that liminal space where certainty dissolves and longing becomes vivid enough to feel almost tangible.

    Humidity became important while writing too. It creates this physical heaviness throughout the piece—something atmospheric and emotional at the same time. The world feels thick with anticipation, almost electrically alive, as if reality itself is trying to push through the veil separating possibility from arrival.

    And then there’s the ending.

    What mattered to me most was that the final realization isn’t framed as destiny in some grand cosmic sense. It’s quieter than that. More human.

    Not:
    “I remembered her.”

    But:
    “I’m becoming someone capable of reaching that life.”

    That distinction changes everything.

    Because the poem ultimately isn’t about escaping reality.

    It’s about slowly awakening into a future version of yourself that already exists somewhere just beyond fear, distance, uncertainty, and waiting.

    And sometimes the first glimpse of that future arrives like a dream before it arrives like a life.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary figure stands on a humid city street as a woman emerges through a dreamlike haze of light and atmosphere.
    Some futures arrive first as dreams, waiting quietly just beyond waking.

    Just Beyond Waking
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I stood on an unfamiliar street,
    feeling unfamiliar heat—
    skin sweat‑slick.
    I was lost in thought,
    stuck in that spot.
    The air around me buzzed,
    electric with the hum
    of life moving past.

    I’ve felt this before—
    but was it
    dream or memory?
    I don’t know.
    Can’t be sure
    anymore.

    Vision shifts as I drift,
    street fading into bedroom walls.
    The bustling street’s noise—
    just music in my headphones.
    Blink and I’m back again,
    don’t know what to think,
    don’t know what’s happening.

    Back on that unfamiliar street,
    I feel the pull creep—
    so I begin to move my feet,
    one step and then another,
    one foot and then the other.

    Reality is shifting,
    I’m losing grip—
    I’m slipping.
    Don’t know what’s the dream,
    and what’s me
    awakening.

    I trip and stumble,
    almost tumble into the street—
    catch myself at the last second,
    clutching the wall
    as if I might drift away.

    Then I hear it.
    A sound, an echo—
    a voice piercing the silence.
    Eyes scan the room
    as humidity creeps
    across my skin.

    I struggle
    to pull in a breath,
    and again
    the sounds of the city
    surround me.
    Again I’m back
    on that same street—

    but I’m no longer alone.

    As my eyes focus,
    slowly she comes into view.
    A gentle smile
    spreads across her lips—
    a soft touch on my arm,
    a line traced by her fingertips.

    The city hums around us,
    alive, waiting.
    And something in her silence
    steadies the world—
    not familiar,
    but right.
    Not remembered,
    but meant.

    And in that moment
    I understand—
    this isn’t memory,
    isn’t dream,
    but the first soft glimpse
    of a life
    I’m still walking toward,
    waiting for me
    just beyond waking.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Twin Suns, Sister Moons]
    A poem about distance, longing, and the quiet pull of someone who lives beneath a different sky. Between twin suns and sister moons, the heart keeps reaching for home.

    [It’s You I Choose]
    A poem about devotion, vulnerability, and the quiet decision to stay. Sometimes love isn’t certainty—it is choosing someone anyway.

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

  • Twin Suns, Sister Moons | A Poem About Distance, Longing, and Shared Skies

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece began with distance.

    Not just physical distance, but the strange emotional distance that forms when two people exist beneath different skies, different suns, different versions of the same moon.

    I found myself thinking about how science fiction—especially something like Star Wars—often uses planets and galaxies to talk about deeply human feelings: isolation, longing, escape, hope, belonging.

    That became the emotional framework for this poem.

    Tatooine and Coruscant aren’t just locations here. They represent emotional states. One is harsh survival. The other feels alive with possibility. The movement between them became a way of talking about wanting closeness badly enough that even entire worlds begin to feel traversable.

    The twin suns imagery mattered to me especially because it captures contradiction so well: existing in two emotional spaces at once, living beneath one sky while mentally reaching toward another.

    There’s also a quiet tension running through the piece between time and distance. The longer you care about someone far away, the more those concepts start blending together. Waiting becomes geography. Time zones become emotional landscapes. Even sunrise and moonrise begin carrying emotional weight.

    At its core, this poem is about gravitational pull.

    About the people who make “elsewhere” start feeling more like home than the place you currently stand.

    And about the quiet ache of wanting to bridge impossible distances anyway.

    — Rowan Evans

    A desert landscape beneath twin suns with a distant city glowing under a rising moon.
    Between your sky and mine, my heart keeps searching for the distance between us.

    Twin Suns, Sister Moons
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Sun lit skies—

    it’s sunrise,
    and I open my eyes
    already lost in thought.
    Believe it or not,
    it’s you I’m thinking of.

    Time—
    the quiet ticking
    of the clock.
    Seconds turn to minutes,
    minutes to hours—
    but time is also distance.

    The distance between
    my sun and yours,
    between two versions
    of the moon.

    And I’m stuck
    living between both.
    Under my sky,
    and by yours—

    Tatooine days
    under twin suns
    and sister moons—

    You make me
    want to escape this place,
    outer rim to the core worlds—
    desert to the city,
    Tatooine to Coruscant.

    I want to make
    your sky mine—

    share in your sun’s shine,
    make your moon
    the centerpiece
    for our nights.

    Moon lit skies—

    the moon rises,
    quiet and patient,
    and I feel it again—
    that pull toward you,
    toward elsewhere,
    toward the place
    my heart keeps trying to reach.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [It’s You I Choose]
    A poem about devotion, vulnerability, and the quiet decision to stay. Sometimes love isn’t certainty—it is choosing someone anyway.

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