←

Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: Moonlight

  • Let Me Be Pacific | A Poem About the Ocean, Distance, Love, and Connection

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    There are some places that become more than places.

    An ocean can be a physical distance, a horizon, a body of water stretching farther than the eye can follow. But sometimes it becomes something else entirely—a canvas, a metaphor, a meeting place between two people who happen to be standing on opposite sides of the world.

    Let Me Be Pacific began with a simple invitation: let me show you the ocean the way I see it.

    From there, the words wandered where they wanted to go.

    Purple skies. Silver moons. Dark water. Rhymes. Trees. Wordplay.

    And eventually, the Pacific became more than scenery.

    It became the space between here and there—and the reminder that something can cross an enormous distance without ever needing to disappear.

    So, for a moment, come sit beside me on the shoreline.

    Let me paint you a picture.

    — Rowan Evans

    A solitary poet sits beside the Pacific at twilight beneath a silver moon, watching its reflection shimmer across the waves.
    The Pacific may separate two shores, but poetry has never been particularly good at respecting distance.

    Let Me Be Pacific
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Here let me take my words
    and paint a picture for you—
    the sky in shades of purple and blue,
    lit by the silver moon—
    it lingers over the bay,
    that’s where it stays—
    watching over the tide,
    and I sit on the shoreline—
    watching the ocean’s waves.

    Which ocean? Okay,
    here let me try and spell it out,
    let me be Pacific—
    it’s off the California coast,
    it touches the Philippine Sea,
    sits between Japan and Me.

    Now back to the imagery—
    there was me, next to a happy little tree,
    and the moon was shimmering,
    trembling across dark water—
    back on the shoreline,
    having written more lines,
    not less, but more rhymes.

    So let me stay Pacific—
    specific in the way I see the sea,
    how every wave feels like a message
    sent across the world to me.
    I sit, I rhyme, I watch the tide—
    the ocean’s big, but so’s my mind.

    And if you ask me why I write
    beside this ocean every night—
    it’s because the tide keeps teaching me
    how distance isn’t always far,
    how even the Pacific can carry a heart
    from California to wherever you are.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [My Nightmare]
    A poem about the nightmare of loving someone across distance, seeing the world from different perspectives, and holding onto the hope that the cracks can still be repaired—and that someday two separate shores might become one.

    [Rose & Ruin]
    Two minimalist poems exploring the opposing forces within creativity: the thoughts we cultivate into something beautiful and the darker thoughts we transform before they have a chance to decay.

    [Across the Page-cific]
    A playful, autobiographical journey through the strange places poetry can take me—from sandwich heartbreak and pasta diss poems to gothic monsters, mythology, ravens, ghosts, and storms across the page. Beneath the absurdity is something deeply personal: the realization that writing gave me a way to rebuild myself, piece by piece.

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

  • Beach to Beach (How I Get There) — A Dream of Ocean, Travel & Longing

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Beach to Beach (How I Get There) is a small exploration of the strange geography of dreams—specifically, the way my mind seems to create its own routes between familiar places and places I’ve never physically experienced.

    I’ve written before about beaches, shorelines, the ocean, moonlight, and the city streets I encounter in my dreams. This piece connects those recurring images into something almost like a map: I leave one shore, cross the imagined sea, arrive somewhere unfamiliar, and let the dream carry me from there.

    There’s also something hopeful underneath the surrealism. These places may exist in my dreams now, but part of me wants to make that journey while awake—to eventually cross those real distances and stand on those unfamiliar shores for myself.

    Sometimes the mind dreams about places before the body ever gets there.

    — Rowan Evans

    A moonlit beach leading across the ocean toward an unfamiliar city coastline, symbolizing dream travel and longing.
    Sometimes the mind travels to places the body hasn’t reached yet.

    Beach to Beach (How I Get There)
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    When I sleep—

    I don’t just rest,
    I drift, I travel—

    moving between worlds,
    between scenery—
    beach to city streets,
    the ones I’ve never known
    while my eyes are open.

    There is a logic my mind follows
    to travel from here to there—

    wherever here and there is,
    it goes like this:

    to leave the shores I know
    and get to the coasts I don’t—
    it’s beach to beach
    after a simple sea crossing—
    and then it’s city streets,
    while the moon watches.

    So I follow the tide
    in my mind—
    until I hit the shoreline.

    I never know what I’ll find—
    but it’s a trip I make often,
    nightly, you could say—
    it’s a trip I hope
    to make awake one day.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Where The Metaphors Lead]
    Some truths are easier to write than they are to say aloud. “Where the Metaphors Lead” explores the quiet space between dreams, confession, and the courage it takes to let another person know how deeply they’ve become woven into your inner world.

    [The World Shifted Around Us]
    The world transformed around us—beach, city streets, jungle—but we never moved. Sometimes love isn’t found in words, but in the quiet certainty of someone remaining clear while everything else fades.

    [Every Night, The Same Flight]
    Every night begins with the same flight. Between wakefulness and sleep, an airport appears, a familiar shoreline waits beyond the journey, and the same dream asks whether some destinations find us before we’re ready to find them.

    [Where I Belonged]
    A bedroom becomes an airport in the space between sleep and waking. Where I Belonged explores liminal consciousness, uncertainty, and the strange moments when reality feels suspended between two worlds.

    [Opposite Coasts of the Same Silence]
    What separates two people isn’t always an ocean. Sometimes it’s the silence between everything left unsaid. Opposite Coasts of the Same Silence explores longing, distance, dreams, and the quiet hope that even across impossible divides, someone might still hear your voice.

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

  • If I Choose You – A Gothic Romantic Vignette by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    “Every heartbeat spoke it before my lips: I choose you, and no one else shall have this part of me.”

    Author’s Note

    This piece was born from a dream—a quiet, suspended moment that lingered in my chest long after waking. It is a reflection on the delicate intensity of choosing someone wholly, without expectation, without reservation. A confession whispered under the weight of night and the hush of possibility.

    Two silhouetted figures walking side by side under a moonlit, rain-kissed street, evoking intimacy and gothic romantic dreamscape.
    “In the hush of night, every step, every glance, carries the weight of choosing someone entirely.”

    If I Choose You
    Vignette by Rowan Evans

    We were walking—
    not speaking, not really—
    just drifting side by side through the night,
    the air thick with warmth,
    heavy with the scent of earth and rain‑kissed leaves.
    Somewhere distant, somewhere familiar,
    but not a place that needed naming.

    Occasionally, one of us would brush against the other.
    A touch so light it barely registered,
    yet electric enough to make the air hum between us.
    A glance stolen, a heartbeat shared—
    then the silence reclaimed its space.

    The world seemed suspended,
    breath held in a fragile pause.
    Streetlights flickered like candle flames,
    and shadows clung to corners as if listening.

    Eventually, she slowed.
    Then stopped.
    I followed suit, pressing my back to a rough wall,
    its coolness grounding me,
    though it did nothing to steady my racing chest.

    She stood a few steps away,
    hands brushing against her thighs,
    eyes cast down for a heartbeat
    before they lifted and caught mine.

    Time stuttered.
    The night folded in on itself.
    Everything—light, air, sound—paused,
    as though the universe itself had exhaled
    and then forgotten how to resume.

    She spoke then, haltingly,
    words fragmented, ephemeral,
    soft as the hush of moth wings.
    I caught only the edges of meaning
    and had to ask her to repeat them,
    to make sure I had heard correctly
    what my soul already knew.

    Her eyes held me—
    dark pools glinting with moonlight and shadow—
    and in that gaze,
    I felt the weight of unspoken things
    pressing against my ribs.
    The pulse of the world slowed,
    and the air shimmered with quiet danger,
    like the night was daring me
    to speak what my heart had been guarding.

    I swallowed hard.
    Once. Twice.
    And the words emerged,
    soft but unwavering,
    a vow pulled from the marrow of me:

    “If I choose you…
    really choose you…
    that’s it.
    No one else gets that part of me.
    Not again.
    Not ever.”

    Each syllable burned with truth,
    lighting the dark corners of my chest,
    and I felt the gravity of it
    as if the universe itself had tilted toward her,
    bearing witness.

    She lingered in the hush,
    silent, processing,
    as if the meaning needed to seep through her bones
    before it could reach her lips.
    Not closed off, not distant,
    just slow—patient, like a storm gathering
    before it breaks in rain.

    I waited.
    The night waited with me.
    Every leaf, every shadow,
    every distant hum of a world still moving
    echoed the ache
    of what might, perhaps, have been ours.

    And then the dream loosened its grip.
    The edges frayed.
    I woke,
    chest tight, heart full,
    with the weight of absence pressing down,
    not sorrow, not fear,
    but the unmistakable ache of something
    almost—almost—touched,
    almost held,
    yet still out of reach.

    Looking for more poetry? You can find it all in [The Library of Ashes].