Author’s Note

I’ve realized over the years that music does more than inspire my writing.

It organizes me.

When my thoughts become too loud, too fragmented, too heavy to carry all at once, music gives them shape. Rhythm turns chaos into movement. Emotion becomes something I can follow instead of drown in.

This piece is about that process.

About the strange balance between instability and expression. Between wobbling and staying upright. Between feeling overwhelmed… and still creating anyway.

The references throughout the poem aren’t random. They reflect the sounds and artists that genuinely help ground me—music that travels across borders the same way emotion does.

Because sometimes healing doesn’t look like silence or peace.

Sometimes it looks like headphones on, music loud, pen moving, and surviving one line at a time.

— Rowan Evans

The Music Holds Me Upright
Poetry by Rowan Evans

I sit with them
when thoughts get heavy—

the weight
I’ve struggled
to carry.

My spine bends,
but never breaks.

They call me weeble,
the way I wobble
but don’t fall down.

Standing
on shaking ground.

Depression.
Anxiety.

The fire
inside of me.

Flames flicker—
entranced—

the pen
begins
to dance.

When thoughts grow heavy
with the weight
I’ve struggled
to carry—

I write.

Lights.
Camera.
Action.

The page—
a stage.

The pen—
a dancer.

Weaving
ink-stained paths
across lined paper.

Word after word,
I write what hurts—

but I need
the music first.

Soundtrack
to the chaos,
drifting through
Thailand,
Japan,
Korea,
and the Philippines.

Soundscapes
helping my emotions
take shape.

Painting images,
arranging metaphors—

the music becomes
a tour guide
inside my mind.

Each stop
refracting—

light fractured,
split.

A new emotion
coming into focus
as the sound shifts.

And still,
I steady—

not by force,
but by rhythm.

The ground may shake.
The thoughts grow heavy.

But the music,
the ink,
the light—

they hold me upright
every time.

So let the scene roll.
Let the soundtrack swell.

I’ll take every fracture,
every wobble,
every spark—

and turn it
into something
that moves.

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