Sometimes the loudest critic in the room is the one living inside your own head.
Creative Whiplash (Pick A Lane!) is about the pressure to define yourself as a writer, choose a style, and stay neatly within its boundaries—even when your creativity refuses to cooperate. One moment, I’m writing gothic poetry; the next, I’m throwing punchlines, weaving mythology, or drawing battle lines with a pen.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, the inner critic starts screaming that nothing makes sense.
The funny part? Sometimes the poem proves the critic wrong before the critic even finishes complaining.
Maybe I don’t need to pick a lane. Maybe creativity was never meant to be a straight road.
— Rowan Evans
Pick a lane? I tried. My creativity took the exit, changed three times, and somehow wrote a poem about it.
Creative Whiplash (Pick A Lane!) Poetry by Rowan Evans
I asked you to show me a metaphor—
you asked, what’s the meta for?
You said you’re a writer, are you sure?
Because I’m not anymore—
run on sentence, run on lines,
zero flow and zero rhymes—
that’s how you write.
Ironic—
I just proved myself
wrong, right?
Well, sometimes I get in my head,
convince myself that nothing I write
is ever good enough—
and no one can call my bluff.
Isn’t that rough?
Pick a lane! Pick a lane!
Repeated, screaming in my brain—
are you a gothic poet,
or do you draw battle lines?
Do you weave myths,
or write comedic shit?
Pick a lane! Pick a lane!
Repeated, screaming in my brain—
giving readers whiplash
with how fast, I switch lanes—
it’s a pain in the neck,
creativity, hard to keep in check.
Iron Sharpens Iron is about what happens when every version of my creative mind sits down at the same table: the gothic romantic, the absurdist comic, the mythmaker, the battle-poet, the joke creator, and whatever other voice decides to kick the door open halfway through a line.
The notebook becomes the sparring ring. One thought throws a punch, another throws a punchline, and sometimes Batman apparently gets involved.
I don’t always plan where the thread is going. Sometimes I just follow it until the poem lands somewhere that makes sense.
Maybe that’s the point.
I don’t need to silence the contradictions. I need them to sharpen each other.
— Rowan Evans
I don’t silence the voices in my head. I let them sharpen each other.
Iron Sharpens Iron Poetry by Rowan Evans
I sit by myself— alone in body, crowded in mind— it’s a constant battle of wits, moon-fed goth kid versus the battle-poet turning pens to WMDs.
The notebook— just a test site, where I drop bombs. It’s constant— the scream of the alarms.
I write so much because my mind fights too much— a gothic romantic, an absurdist comic— opinions, opinions, too many opinions— constant contradictions.
Is this a joke?
Are the emotions sincere?
What the fuck— (Batman!) is that reference doing here?
That’s just how my mind is sometimes— I write a line and follow it, (Stalker.) I don’t plan it—I just follow the thread, guide the ship and land it. But sometimes I get lost— I’ll orbit the planet, or drift in my dreams— and they say to make the dreams work, it takes team work— well, I became my own team, every version of me.
Gothic romantic, absurdist comic, mythmaker, joke creator and professional hater— (Jokes. Love ya!) a battle-poet raised on battle rappers and comedians— how I learned to land a punchline, can’t fight with my fists— but can fight with my mind, and I do it all the time— with myself, I spar, iron sharpens iron, after all.
Journey into the Hexverse
[Blindfolded & Still Winning] A playful battle-poetry freestyle about shutting off the inner editor, letting instinct take over, and discovering that sometimes the pen writes best when you stop watching it.
[Literarily Speaking] They think silence means weakness. They should probably have paid more attention to the pen. Literarily Speaking turns gothic imagery, raven feathers, rose-petal ink, and absurd fictional geography into a playful battle-poetry flex about dismantling your enemies with words instead of hate.
[The Playground] What happens when mythology stops being something to hide behind and becomes architecture for the imagination? The Playground (Language, Metaphors and More) explores Rowan Evans’s relationship with language, symbolism, metaphor, humor, and twenty-three years of turning the page into a place where anything can happen.
Sometimes the easiest way to stop overthinking the poem is to stop looking at it.
Blindfolded & Still Winning came from that impulse: cover the eyes, let the pen move, and see what the mind throws onto the page. The anger gets folded into jokes, the jokes get stitched into rhythm, and suddenly what could have been a rant turns into a little battle-rap playground.
The blindfold isn’t a handicap here.
It’s permission to trust the instinct.
And apparently, even without looking, the pen still thinks it knows how to win.
— Rowan Evans
Cover the eyes. Let the pen drive. See what happens.
Blindfolded & Still Winning Poetry by Rowan Evans
I’m sick and tired of watching what I say— so I cover my eyes when I write— because even I like to be surprised by my mind, sometimes.
So today I’ll be blind— folded the anger with my jokes, then mixed them in to the rhythm and rhyme— I’ll get over it on my own time.
(Really, I’m over it already.)
Pen like a switch blade, words so sharp, I filet men— yawn, you’re boring me. Took you five hours to write five lines— took me five minutes to write ten times— the rhymes, set ups and punchlines.
Journey into the Hexverse
[Literarily Speaking] They think silence means weakness. They should probably have paid more attention to the pen. Literarily Speaking turns gothic imagery, raven feathers, rose-petal ink, and absurd fictional geography into a playful battle-poetry flex about dismantling your enemies with words instead of hate.
[The Playground] What happens when mythology stops being something to hide behind and becomes architecture for the imagination? The Playground (Language, Metaphors and More) explores Rowan Evans’s relationship with language, symbolism, metaphor, humor, and twenty-three years of turning the page into a place where anything can happen.
[New God with a Pen] A battle-poet power fantasy where Superman’s rage, Batman’s fear, Darkseid’s cosmic authority, and the Anti-Life Equation collide with rhyme, turning an ordinary pen into something worthy of New God status.
For me, language is something to climb through, rearrange, break apart, rebuild, and occasionally weaponize for the sake of a really bad joke. Mythology and symbolism are still part of that world, but they aren’t walls I hide behind anymore—they’re architecture. They give the imagination somewhere to live while the poet underneath it keeps revealing himself, piece by piece.
The Playground (Language, Metaphors and More) is an invitation into that space.
It is part creative philosophy, part victory lap, part conversation with the page—and, naturally, part terrible knock-knock joke. Because if I’ve spent twenty-three years turning language into a playground, I’m going to play.
— Rowan Evans
The page isn’t a cage. It’s a playground—and I’ve brought my own rules.
The Playground (Language, Metaphors and More) Poetry by Rowan Evans
I sat down—
with the intent to write,
had a lot of ideas
on my mind tonight—
like what if the moon
was a witness?
And the tide a guide through
the emotional current
in the room—
but that’s just if I
went the route
of mythology,
symbolism—
and everything
I used to hide behind.
That’s not how I use it now—
it’s still my mythology,
symbolic architecture—
giving my words texture—
but I don’t
hide behind it—
I use it now,
to show the art of me,
getting to the deeper
heart of me—
not the whole picture,
just a small part of me.
I’ve been doing this
for twenty-three
years and counting—
and I’m definitely
not on my way out now—
I’ll hit my second, third,
fourth and fifth wind,
any day now—
I’ve turned language
into my fucking playground—
everything is a game now.
Just conversating
with the page now—
I’m done pretending,
like I don’t write flames now—
poetry’s royalty,
I’m taking my crown now—
and I think it’s time you all
bow down—
look I’m going to make a joke,
turn into a clown now.
Why don’t we slow down?
I’ll tell you that joke now—
Knock, Knock—
who’s there?
Disa—
Disa-who?
Disa-me? I disa-you—
with a line so mean
you’ll want to disappear,
wish you were never here—
here’s a warning, dear:
If you see my ravens,
perched upon your lawn—
it’s an omen—
you are already gone.
Journey into the Hexverse
[The Metaphor Machine] A poem that takes apart its own machinery as it runs—breaking lines, breaking thoughts, and following metaphors from moonlight to tides, oceans, shorelines, and city streets.
[Confession or Cap?] A sharp and playful look at the line between confession and exaggeration, where a nice poet admits that their pen sometimes talks a little too much shit—and occasionally sets the page on fire.
There is a strange kind of intimacy in being known through words.
A reader can walk through your thoughts, recognize pieces of themselves in your metaphors, and feel close to the person behind the page. Sometimes that closeness becomes something deeper—feelings forming around a voice, a mind, a collection of carefully chosen pieces of a life.
But a page is still only a page.
Half a Picture steps into that uncomfortable space between being seen and being truly known. It isn’t dismissing the feelings that can grow through poetry; those feelings can be completely real. It is simply looking at what happens when someone falls for the person they’ve encountered through the words, while the rest of the picture remains outside the frame.
— Rowan Evans
You can know someone’s words by heart and still only have half the picture.
Half a Picture Poetry by Rowan Evans
I’m going to talk about something
I don’t talk about a lot—
it’s an interesting thing,
the way people cling—
messages received—
“I love you,”
excuse me, what?
That’s a strong way to start—
and I’m flattered, really.
But they don’t know me,
not really—
I know they think they do,
because they’ve read my words—
seen my mind
and walked through my thoughts—
that’s how they feel,
and to them it’s real—
who am I to say it’s not?
But they fell in love
with half a picture—
a blurred photo—
and a vague description of me.
Journey into the Hexverse
[All for Me] When thunder becomes applause, lightning turns into paparazzi, and rain rolls out a flooded red carpet, one poet starts wondering whether nature’s celebration has gone a little too far.
[Lessons Without Kindness] A reflection on learning self-respect from a relationship that changed—the lessons hidden in manipulation, silence, and loss, and the realization that you don’t have to shrink yourself to make someone else feel tall.
[The Metaphor Machine] A poem that takes apart its own machinery as it runs—breaking lines, breaking thoughts, and following metaphors from moonlight to tides, oceans, shorelines, and city streets.
It’s Almost Like I Know What I’m Doing is a little self-audit that turns into a flex before I can stop it.
I started by wondering whether my writing had become too much swagger and not enough emotion—whether the ink was simply running free without anything underneath it. Then I remembered how long I’ve been doing this, where some of that rhythm came from, and why I learned to turn anger into cadence and pain into something that could make me laugh.
Maybe the swagger isn’t the absence of emotion.
Maybe it’s one of the ways I’ve learned to carry it.
This piece is me looking at the machinery behind my own writing and realizing that the things I sometimes question—rhythm, rhyme, comedy, aggression, timing, and instinct—aren’t accidents anymore.
They’re tools.
And apparently, after all these years, I might actually know how to use them.
— Rowan Evans
After twenty-three years of shaping ink, maybe the swagger isn’t accidental.
It’s Almost Like I Know What I’m Doing Poetry by Rowan Evans
It’s like my writing has become
all swagger, no emotion—
it’s like the ink is coastin’,
like the edge of the sea—
but there’s no tide to guide me.
So my lines run free—
sometimes that’s not a problem for me,
other times it feels like it ends tragically,
like I’m going to say some shit,
and make people mad at me—
but if it happens naturally,
I’ll take the consequences, happily.
When the switch flips
and my mind shifts—
I can feel the slow drip,
emotions begin to slip
and my thoughts trip—
trip up and stumble,
drop the ball—fumble.
It’s only round one,
get ready to rumble—
this is a battle,
a bit more than a scuffle,
slide my feet—shuffle.
I’ve got twenty-nine years
putting marks on paper—
twenty-three years
as a real ink shaper—
I’ve poured my heart into this,
my whole life has been ink-stained—
spent years translating pain,
nearly thirty years,
laying my rage on the page—
it started early—
I was maybe nine or ten,
getting bullied back then.
I hated the bullies, hated school too.
Hated the fact they thought
they were too cool—
too small to fight back,
but I could write—
so I could bite back.
Used my ink to launch an attack,
went full scale—
you see,
I cut my teeth on bars
and that’s why—
my lines go hard.
I started at nine
learning the legends rhymes—
y’all gon’ make me lose my mind,
until even I’m asking
what My Name Is…
Never mind. False alarm.
I found it—
it was inside rhyming,
learning comedic timing—
yeah, I took the rage
and taught it how
to joke its way
across the page—
whether happy or in pain.
All it changed is
how I worded some things,
it’s almost like—
I know what I’m doing.
Journey into the Hexverse
[New God With a Pen] A battle-poet power fantasy where Superman’s rage, Batman’s fear, Darkseid’s cosmic authority, and the Anti-Life Equation collide with rhyme, turning an ordinary pen into something worthy of New God status.
[Lessons Without Kindness] A reflection on learning self-respect from a relationship that changed—the lessons hidden in manipulation, silence, and loss, and the realization that you don’t have to shrink yourself to make someone else feel tall.
[The Sacred Timeline] From childhood stories about Dragon Ball Z, Power Rangers, and Pokémon to gothic cathedrals, ravens, roses, identity, healing, and experimentation, The Sacred Timeline traces how Rowan Evans’s relationship with the pen evolved across thirty-six years—and how the ink remained while the writer kept changing.
The Metaphor Machine is a poem about the machinery behind my own poetry. I wanted to pull back the curtain and show what happens when a single line starts generating connections: moonlight becomes tide, tide becomes ocean, ocean becomes shoreline, shoreline becomes city streets, and suddenly the poem has wandered somewhere entirely different.
The joke is that I’m explaining the process while actively doing it. The poem breaks its own lines, interrupts its own thoughts, calls attention to its metaphors, and then circles back to reveal that all those seemingly wandering pieces were connected by the same machine.
Sometimes I don’t choose the metaphor. I just follow where it takes me.
— Rowan Evans
One metaphor becomes another, and the machine keeps running.
The Metaphor Machine Poetry by Rowan Evans
I’ll write a line in a way
that’ll make you pause—
then I’ll take that line
and break that line,
to break the thought—
then I sprinkle in the metaphors,
and this is really what I get meta for—
I talk about the moon
and the silver light,
the way it shimmers—
its image trembles
across the top
of dark water—
that’s one I’ve said before.
And I’ve said it lot,
but I’m not going to stop.
This is where the tides comes,
and there the tide goes—
because that’s how the tide works.
And the ocean—
this is a poem, I wrote…
you didn’t think
we were going to skip this one,
did you?
And the ocean,
it’s so polite—
the way it waves,
every time it sees my face.
It’s a familiar place,
I sit on the shoreline, often—
not in reality, but in my mind—
that’s where the thoughts soften.
Now, for the city streets—
the heat, and god—
that humidity, the way it clings.
You’d think I’d dream of…
somewhere less…
humid? But I digress,
it’s always love that I express
for the islands I haven’t touched yet.
If you’re following along—
I wrote a line
that made you pause—
then I took that line
and I broke that line—
and that broke the thought.
Then that’s where the pivot came,
I told you what I really went meta for.
It’s the metaphors.
Moon to tide,
tied to the ocean—
a shoreline or two,
next to the ocean blue—
then beaches to city streets,
it’s the same ones I walk in sleep.
Journey into the Hexverse
[Welcome to the Hexverse] Step into the Hexverse—a poetic world where mythmaking, humor, rage, creativity, and confession collide, and darkness becomes something that can be reshaped into art.
[High Tide] A short reflective poem about leaving, returning, and accepting the forces that pull us back—like the tide guided by the moon.
[Let Me Pacific] A lyrical poem about sitting beside the Pacific Ocean and discovering that an enormous body of water can become a bridge between distant hearts. Through ocean imagery, wordplay, and reflections on California and the Philippines, Let Me Be Pacific explores how love and poetry can cross even the greatest distances.
[Did You Really Think This Was About Trees?] A playful love poem disguised as a forest of terrible tree puns. Beneath the birch, oak, cedar, palms, lumber, and absurdist wordplay is a poem about devotion, loyalty, laughter, and building a life with someone you love.
