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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: Midnight Poetry

  • More Afraid Than the Ink | A Confessional Poem About Fear, Dreams & Unspoken Love

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some poems don’t begin with an idea.

    They begin with resistance.

    This one came from that familiar place I’ve written about before: four in the morning, when the world is quiet enough that my thoughts become impossible to ignore.

    I started writing about fear, but somewhere along the way I realized I wasn’t afraid of the page.

    The page has never been the problem.

    Ink has always been brave.

    It says the things I hesitate to speak.

    The real fear has always been what happens after the words exist.

    What happens when a confession leaves the safety of metaphor.

    When it stops being “the moon,” “the tide,” or “the shore,” and simply becomes the truth.

    If you’ve read much of my recent work, you’ll probably recognize many of the images here. The moon. The bay. The ocean. The distant shoreline. Dreams that feel more like memories than imagination.

    They’re all still here.

    Only this time, the poem admits something they’ve been pointing toward all along.

    Sometimes metaphors aren’t hiding the truth.

    They’re slowly teaching us how to say it.

    — Rowan Evans

    An open journal and fountain pen beside a moonlit bay with shimmering reflections across calm water.
    Sometimes the ink is willing to tell the truth long before the poet is.

    More Afraid Than the Ink
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Four AM again—
    I breathe in and try to center myself,
    but it doesn’t seem to help.
    My mind wanders—
    moving from idea to truth
    and back again,
    carrying a collection of images
    and broken metaphors.

    The ink runs from my pen—
    like it’s scared of it.
    Because sometimes,
    my thoughts are dark
    and there’s no light in it.
    It trembles—
    lines becoming jagged
    as the truth hits
    a little too close to home.

    And the metaphors
    are broken for sure—
    it’s like I see the moon,
    but it doesn’t shimmer anymore.
    I don’t see the bay,
    I don’t feel the tide.

    There’s no ache,
    no longing for connection—
    across a divide
    an ocean wide.

    Okay, I lied.

    At night, when I close my eyes
    and my head hits the pillow—
    I feel the tide,
    it tugs at the heartstrings inside.
    I hear the waves, feel the ocean spray—
    and I see the familiar shimmer,
    the way the moon’s light trembles
    across dark water.

    The tide is why I dream of your shores—
    it’s why I walk your streets in sleep.
    And the moon provides the spotlight
    for every confession
    I speak with eyes closed…

    for every confession
    that I cannot say aloud,
    not outside of my dreams—not now,
    because I’m more afraid
    than the ink is.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [When the Veil Is Thin]
    Some truths wait until after four in the morning to make themselves known. When the Veil Is Thin explores insomnia, longing, quiet vulnerability, and the thoughts that become impossible to ignore before dawn.

    [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.

    [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.

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

  • Double Feature: The Witch’s Gospel — Poems of Hexes, Rebellion, and Dark Roses

    Rowan Evans

    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

    A gothic garden at midnight with black roses and candles, a lone female figure standing near a stone altar, mist and embers swirling around.
    From ashes bloom dark petals — the witch’s gospel in motion.

    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 →