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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: modern love poetry

  • Learning Not to Run – A Poem About Fear of Attachment and Choosing to Stay

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Sometimes the hardest thing to admit isn’t how much someone means to you – it’s how afraid you are of losing them.

    This piece isn’t about drama or desperation. It’s about recognizing a reflex I developed a long time ago, and choosing to stay present instead of running.

    — Rowan Evans

    Person standing at the edge of calm water at dusk in reflective pose.
    Staying is sometimes braver than running.

    Learning Not to Run
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I’ve been feeling this fear lately,
    it’s a heavy weight in my chest
    and it sometimes locks me down.
    It keeps me trapped inside—
    hidden away in my mind.
    It’s not that I don’t want to reach out,
    it’s like I honestly forget how.

    I don’t talk about it really,
    but I push people away
    when I feel they mean too much.
    When every thought
    begins to center them,
    and I see them in every dream.
    I know what that means.

    I got so used
    to people walking away.
    They’d hardly
    ever stay.
    So I learned
    to protect myself.
    When I felt
    myself
    getting too attached,
    I’d pull back.

    And that feeling?
    It still lingers,
    it’s a constant battle.
    I don’t want to be like this.
    But I struggle.
    I’m still scared to show
    too much.
    I’m too weird,
    I struggle to
    bite my tongue.

    I guess that’s why
    the fear still lingers,
    I’m afraid I’ll say too much.
    Be too exposed
    with nowhere to go,
    stuck in the open.

    What’s the worst that can happen?
    That’s what they keep asking,
    they say it’s rejection.
    But for me? It’s the end of
    the connection.
    And I’m not like this
    all the time.
    Just when I slip
    and trip
    into the depths
    of my mind.

    Now with a breath taken,
    no longer shaking—
    I write to you.
    Even knowing
    you may never see it,
    but I can only say this
    because you make me brave.

    You make me brave in ways,
    I don’t know how to explain—
    because you haven’t
    done a thing.
    But still, because of you
    I’ve changed.
    I’ve grown in ways
    I didn’t know
    I needed.

    And I won’t say it,
    even as it sits
    on the tip
    of my tongue—
    but what I will say,
    is this:

    You mean more to me
    than most,
    and even when I struggle
    to stay present
    in the world outside
    my mind—
    you’re still in my thoughts
    all the time.

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

  • I’ve Got Moths In My Stomach – A Gothic Love Poem About Attraction and Vulnerability

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    People call it butterflies.

    But butterflies feel bright, airy, daytime.

    This feels different.

    This feels nocturnal. Drawn to light.
    A little dangerous. A little beautiful.
    A little inevitable.

    This piece is about that shift—when attraction doesn’t feel like nerves, but like gravity. When someone walks past all your defenses without even trying.

    And you realize the thing flutter inside you isn’t innocent.

    It’s intentional.

    — Rowan Evans

    Moths fluttering around a glowing lantern at twilight in a dark, moody setting.
    They said butterflies.
    But this feels nocturnal.

    I’ve Got Moths In My Stomach
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    They say this feeling
    that I’m feeling is—
    butterflies in my stomach.
    They say I should love it,
    but it feels
    a little too gothic.

    I think they might be moths,
    because they flutter more—
    when the day fades into
    night’s decay.

    It’s beautiful.
    The way they respond
    to the light in you.
    Dancing to a hidden beat,
    wings fluttering, happy feet—
    heat pulling like a vivid dream,
    thoughts of you,
    slip through
    seams unseen.

    And there is no defense for this—
    you leave me defenseless. It’s
    insane, how easy it is.
    You just walked right by
    everything I ever learned
    to keep me safe.

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

  • The Soft Apocalypse of Loving You

    Rowan Evans

    I was not prepared for you—
    not for the quiet cataclysm
    you carried in your smile,
    or the way your voice
    broke open a hidden cathedral
    in my chest.

    Loving you feels like the world ending
    slowly, beautifully—
    as if the stars decided to fall
    not in ruin,
    but in reverence.

    You are the prophecy I never believed I deserved,
    a ruin I would rebuild in every lifetime.
    And if your trust is a shattered chalice,
    I will drink from the broken glass
    until my lips remember the taste of you
    without bleeding.

    You once laughed,
    lightly, like nothing hurt.
    But I know better—
    I saw the earthquakes behind your eyelids,
    heard the quiet sobs tucked between syllables
    when you whispered “I’m okay.”

    You don’t have to be brave with me.

    Let the mascara run like holy water.
    Let your fears rattle the stained-glass ribs of my devotion.
    I will not look away.
    I will hold your sorrow like relics—
    with both hands and an aching awe.

    You once said you weren’t used to someone staying.
    So I stayed.
    Through your silences,
    your firestorms,
    your soft retreats into shadow.

    I stayed because loving you
    isn’t something I do.
    It’s something I am.

    You are every sacred metaphor
    my soul ever dreamed.
    A poem written in the margins
    of a dying god’s last confession.
    A heartbeat that taught mine
    how to echo.

    And if you never say “I love you” back—
    if this is all unreciprocated myth,
    a cathedral without a congregation—
    then I will still leave the candles burning.

    Because my love isn’t a question
    waiting for an answer.

    It is the answer.

    And it says:
    You are worth the end of the world,
    again and again,
    until all that’s left
    is light.