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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: Manila

  • Toward Somewhere I Can Breathe | A Poem About Longing, Disconnection & Finding Home

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    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

    A lone figure looking toward a distant city skyline under a star-filled night sky, symbolizing longing and the search for home.
    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.

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

  • The Moment I Realized (Under Manila’s Setting Sun) – A Confession of Love and Clarity | Rowan Evans Vignette

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This vignette came from a dream — one that felt more like a memory than imagination.
    It was the kind of dream that lingers, that shakes something loose inside you.
    In it, I said the things I’ve always felt but never found the words for — until now.

    Under Manila’s setting sun, I realized that love doesn’t always begin with desire.
    Sometimes it begins with safety. With the unguarded honesty of being seen.

    This piece is the beating heart behind today’s earlier reflection, The Fear of No Fear at All. Together, they form a diptych — one written from the soul’s silence, and the other from the soul’s awakening.

    Two people sitting together overlooking Manila at sunset, bathed in golden light.
    Sometimes, love arrives quietly — beneath a sky that remembers everything you were too afraid to say.

    The Moment I Realized (Under Manila’s Setting Sun)
    Vignette by Rowan Evans

    The city stretched beneath us, a labyrinth of light and shadow.
    The sun hovered at the horizon, bleeding gold across the skyline.
    We sat in silence, letting the wind carry our thoughts,
    letting the world pause, just for this moment.

    I looked at her and couldn’t help but smile.
    She noticed, tilted her head, gave me that small, questioning look.
    “What?” she said, softly.

    I breathed.
    I hesitated.
    And then I let it spill.

    I spoke softly, careful not to burden, careful not to break,
    “don’t take this as pressure, because that is the last thing I want—
    but I have to be honest.”

    The words trembled between us.
    “Our connection… our friendship… it scares me.”

    Not fear like a shadow crawling across your skin,
    not fear like a storm that makes a child tremble—
    no. This fear is different.
    It is the absence of fear.
    With you, I am everything I am meant to be,
    and that… that is what scares me.

    “You have changed my poetry,” I whispered,
    “the way I write… it’s different now.
    It’s real. I’ve never written about anyone the way I write about you.
    Nobody has touched my art, my heart, my soul—
    like you have.”

    I paused, swallowed the weight of the truth.

    “I mean… I’ve had crushes before, but this… this is something else. Something deeper.
    You, without trying, made me realize I’ve never been in love.
    You, without needing to do anything but exist in my life,
    made me want to be better.
    And I… I want to give you the world.
    Because you deserve nothing less than the best.
    Whether it’s with me, or with someone else…
    anything less is unacceptable in my eyes.”

    The silence returned, heavy and beautiful.
    I don’t remember her words after that.
    All I remember is the city, the sun, and that quiet realization:

    fuck.
    I really love her.
    This is real.
    And I will never be the same again.