Author’s Note

Every rebellion begins as a prayer whispered into darkness.

Mary Cast a Little Hex is the solitary hymn — a woman standing before her altar of ruin, choosing power over apology. She is the patron saint of the unrepentant, the quiet spark that lights the rebellion.

Ring Around the Rose Bush is her echo, multiplied — the chorus of daughters who rose from her ashes, the feral bloom of a world reborn through wrath and grace. It is a hymn for every heretic heart that refuses to kneel.

Together, these poems are a Witch’s Gospel: a scripture of survival and sanctified rage.

To burn and still bloom — that is the miracle.
To be called “too much” and still rise — that is the magic.

May every word be a spell,
and every reader, a flame.

— Rowan Evans

Mary Cast a Little Hex
Poetry by Rowan Evans
(Written June 28th, 2025)

Mary cast a little hex,
The altar cold as stone—
A whisper stitched from thorn and wax,
A prayer she made alone.

She didn’t weep. She didn’t kneel.
She bit the moon instead—
And carved her name in shadows deep,
Where angels fear to tread.

They called her “witch” with tongues of ash,
Their blessings laced with blame.
But Mary burned like prophecy—
Too holy for their shame.

Her heart was made of comet dust,
Her breath a velvet flame.
She kissed the wind and it obeyed,
Then vanished with no name.

And now the stars recall her sigh,
The dark hums with her spell.
Each midnight bloom, each broken clock
Still rings the chapel bell.

She walks in dreams of restless girls
Who ache, but do not bend—
Their lashes lit with embers red,
Their laughter sharp at end.

Now every hex, each whispered spell,
Still bears her rebel mark—
A kiss of ink, a flame of hope,
A torch lit in the dark.

Ring Around the Rose Bush
Poetry by Rowan Evans
(Written June 29th, 2025)

Ring around the rose bush,
A pocket full of thorns—
Ashes to ashes,
Patriarchy drags us into scorn.

Whispers crawl beneath cracked lips,
Where shadows breed and plots conspire,
They wear their crowns of rotten bone,
And feed us poison from the pyre.

We dance in ruins, blackened bells,
Singing songs they tried to smother,
Our bones break glass beneath their heels,
Our fury is a mother.

Ring around the rose bush,
We spin through smoke and flame—
Ashes choke the blackening sky,
But from these ashes, we carve our name.

They bury us beneath cold earth,
Try to silence every scream,
But roots of rage twist deep and dark,
Bursting forth like a fevered dream.

We are the thorn inside the rose,
The wound that will not heal,
A reckoning dressed in midnight,
The truth they cannot steal.

Ring around the rose bush,
A pocket full of spite—
Ashes to ashes,
We rise again to fight.

So let the gardens rot and fall,
Let the halls grow cold and bare,
From the cracks, new roses bloom—
Dark petals soaked in dare.

Step deeper into the shadows and discover the full breadth of my poetry in The Library of Ashes — an archive of ink-stained devotion, dark petals, and threshold poems that linger long after the last candle flickers. Visit The Library of Ashes →