Sometimes, the quiet isn’t empty. Sometimes, it carries you, like a pulse behind the walls. Here, in the hush, I watch. Here, in the stillness, I breathe. Here, I am seen, even when no else is.
— Rᵒᵒ ᵗʰᵉ Pᵒᵉᵗ
“Surrounded in silence, both ghost and witness.” – Rᵒᵒ ᵗʰᵉ Pᵒᵉᵗ
Between Walls and Whispers (Ghost and Witness) Pᵒᵉᵗʳʸ bʸ Rᵒᵒ ᵗʰᵉ Pᵒᵉᵗ
Sometimes, I find myself surrounded in silence— not absence, but a quiet hum behind the walls. The room feels full, but nobody’s really there, and I am both ghost and witness—
drifting, endless, caught in this forced flow of normalcy.
A weirdo, misfit, outcast— purposeful outsider, rejector of the machine.
I don’t want to be another cog. Sometimes, I long for silence— not the absence, but that gentle presence, a pulse softer than the endless hum.
And in that silence, I breathe. I am seen, I am held, not by voices or eyes, but by the quiet that understands what the hum cannot touch.
“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.
“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.
This poem is a meditation on love that demands patience, courage, and total presence. It is written for those whose hearts have been tested, broken, or misread—and for the people brave enough to stay, to witness, and to hold. It is about devotion, reverence, and the quiet power of being fully seen.
Every fracture tells a story—and some loves are brave enough to rewrite the timeline.
Timelines Worth Rewriting Poetry by Rowan Evans (Written April 21, 2025)
Don’t fall in love with me
unless you’re ready for time zones and tenderness,
for clocks set to your breath
even when you’re not speaking.
Unless you know how to read
the unsent messages
I whisper into the quiet of 3 a.m.,
when my world is still sleeping
and I am drowning
in the silence between our heartbeats.
I didn’t mean for this to happen.
You were someone else’s—
a name I only knew
through the tremble in your voice,
a shadow of a boy
who left bruises where joy should’ve bloomed.
You were a poem already breaking,
and I…
I just wanted to be a page
that didn’t hurt to land on.
I wasn’t chasing fire.
I was tending embers.
The way I always do—
with a soul stitched together by
the broken glass of old timelines,
where love meant losing myself
in someone else’s storm.
But you were different.
You asked nothing—
and gave everything in glances
you didn’t know were sacred.
I told myself the clock widget
was just a kindness.
A way to say
good morning, warrior,
good morning, beautiful,
good morning, still-here.
But the truth?
It became my North Star.
A constant.
A compass pointing always to you.
I fell in love the way
only a person who’s clawed their way through shadow can—
with reverence.
With awe.
With hands that tremble
but still reach.
I saw your pain
like an open door
to a familiar room—
and I walked in,
not to fix you,
but to sit beside you
in the ruins.
Because I’ve been there.
Because I carry my own ghosts,
and I name them in poems
so they don’t haunt me in sleep.
They say I should’ve stayed away.
That I’m playing with fire.
But fire never scared me—
I was forged in it.
Born of battle cries
and whispered truths
and a girlhood denied.
I don’t wear guilt for things I didn’t break.
And I didn’t break you.
He did.
He, who saw your softness as weakness.
He, who mistook your loyalty
for something owed.
But me?
I saw the Queen beneath the scars.
I saw the way you held yourself together
with gold-threaded hope,
kintsugi soul—
every crack shining brighter
because you never stopped choosing to try.
Don’t fall in love with me
if you’re afraid of complicated truths.
Because I will love you
with the same hands
that once wrote suicide notes
and now write survival stories.
Because I will see your shadows
and still call you light.
Don’t fall in love with me
if you’re not ready to be seen completely—
every bruise, every brilliance,
every whisper you’ve never spoken aloud.
I do not love in fractions.
I do not flinch from the messy,
the haunted, the hungry parts of you
You think no one could ever stay for.
I will.
But only if you’re ready.
Only if your heart can bear being held
without armor.
I didn’t plan to fall.
But you spoke in moonlight,
and I’ve always been lunar-bound.
Tied to tides.
Pulled by gravity
in the shape of your laugh.
And even if you never say my name
the way I hope,
even if I am just a season
you remember when it rains—
know that I loved you
without agenda,
without shame,
without asking for anything
but to witness your rise.
Don’t fall in love with me
unless you’re ready
to be the reason I believe
there are timelines worth rewriting.
In the space between ruin and reverence, devotion becomes a sharp-edged hymn. This poem is a shrine to chaos, a confession in the language of fire and barbed wire. Read if you dare—fall willingly into the storm.
Surrender and devotion entwined in shadow and flame – ‘Barbed Wire Halo’ by Rowan Evans.
Barbed Wire Halo Poetry by Rowan Evans
They say there must be something wrong with me—
because I crave the bite, the sting.
Yeah, I love it when you’re mean.
Spit your acid-laced psalms,
let them blister on my skin like holy fire.
I’ll wear the burn like a blessing.
Pain tastes like proof
when your mouth carves silence into me.
The ache is real—
and real is what I’ve been dying to feel.
So dig your nails into this paper-thin faith,
etch your name down my back like scripture.
You call me unworthy,
but damn it, that just makes me want you more—
like hunger gnawing at the bones of devotion.
A moth to the flame,
I keep flying into your ruin
just to see if I can light the dark.
Your halo is barbed wire, rusted and holy,
glinting above the curve of your devil horns.
You speak in ash and absolutes,
and I still beg you to speak again.
I kneel where your shadow spills—
sacrament in the shape of surrender.
So tear me down.
Whisper sins into the hollow of my throat.
I’ll still kiss you like salvation
when all you offer is the storm.
Because even ruin can feel like worship
when it’s you I’m falling for.
Through the Shattered Glass II is a continuation of a fractured exploration of memory, trauma, and lingering presence. Written from the perspective of the “other” in a haunting, spectral voice, it blurs the line between witness and participant, reality and echo. The poem is meant to unsettle and mesmerize, leaving questions unanswered—because some truths exist only in fragments.
Through the shards of memory, the echoes remain…
Through the Shattered Glass II Fragmented Nightmare: Through Another’s Eyes Poetry by B.D. Nightshade
Shards.
Red, silver, sharp—
I cut my palm on what isn’t there.
A laugh—too low, too close,
slips beneath the floorboards,
slithers into my chest.
I remember the air.
Cold, metallic.
Or was it hot, burning my throat?
Footsteps echo backward,
though I never moved.
A hand grazes my shoulder—
I recoil. No one is there.
Yet the pulse in my veins
screams I am not alone.
Mirror.
Fractured.
Eyes staring—mine? Yours?
I reach—
and the reflection spits me out.
Something drips.
Clock? Heart? Faucet?
I follow.
Red. Wet. Wrong.
A scream.
Or a whisper.
Or a laugh I know too well.
Memory fractures—
two bodies, one space,
and the space is infinite.
The other, the same,
or just a shadow trailing mine?
I crouch over shards,
bare feet sticky with nothing and everything.
Hands tremble—they belong to someone else.
Or maybe to both of us.
A name?
No.
Nothing.
Just the ache of presence,
the itch of absence,
the smell of iron in the hollow of air.
I feel her—
or him—
or the echo—
pressing against me from everywhere
and nowhere.
Was it laughter?
Was it pain?
Was it memory, or the ghost of memory?
Shadows twist.
I am falling.
Or rising.
Or sinking in place.
The floor tilts.
The walls bend.
My pulse, a hammer.
My breath, a blade.
My scream—
stuck.
Still.
Here.
Shards of me, shards of you,
swirling, bleeding,
unclaimed,
untouchable,
and the world bends around the space
where we were—or were not.
And I—
I remain.
Closing Note
The fragments linger. Perhaps you have glimpsed them, perhaps you have not. In the spaces between breath and shadow, in the shards of memory that refuse to settle, the story continues—both everywhere and nowhere. Beware what haunts the mirrors.
Journey into the Hexverse
Through the Shattered Glass— B.D. Nightshade Step back into the shattered world and follow the echoes… Can you uncover what really transpired?
If you would like to explore beyond this mystery, you can find more of my work inThe Library of Ashes.
✦ Poetic Commissions by Rowan Evans ✦
Every word I write is a devotion, a fragment of shadow and light carefully shaped into verse. On my Ko-fi, I offer custom poems, personalized rituals in language, and lyrical messages crafted just for you—or someone you wish to honor, surprise, or remember.
Whether you seek:
A poem for a loved one, friend, or muse
A ritualized or thematic verse for special occasions
A written reflection to say everything you struggle to
…each commission is approached with care, reverence, and the intensity of my signature Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism.
✨ Special Offer:Use code NGCR25 at checkout to receive 25% off any commission until the end of the month. Let these words become your keepsake, your offering, your moment of devotion.
What follows is a journey into shadow and flame, a world where desire and devotion intertwine with pain and longing. This chapter introduces you to a sacred chaos—where hearts are laid bare, boundaries tested, and love wears a crown forged from fire.
The story is intimate, intense, and not for the faint of heart. It explores consent, power, and the reverent surrender that can exist in the space between darkness and trust. Approach with an open mind and a willing heart, and let yourself be seen as the characters see each other: raw, unhidden, and wholly human.
Step carefully. Step willingly. Step into the Chapel.
“The Chapel” – Chapter One of Of Ashes & Reverence. Lilith claims Gabriel in shadow and candlelight; desire, devotion, and power intertwine in Neo-Gothic intimacy.
Of Ashes & Reverence
Chapter One The Chapel
[Gabriel]
The moon was a bruised pearl in the sky, casting its pale rot across the dead hills. The air tasted of rust and ruin, and still—I followed the pull.
It wasn’t a voice that called me. Not really. It was a sensation: a whisper threading through marrow, an ache that bloomed behind my ribs. I walked the crumbling path without hesitation, past the graves half-swallowed by moss, until I saw her.
She stood in the center of the ruined chapel, barefoot on the cold stone floor, surrounded by flickering candles like stars caught mid-fall. Her head tilted back in laughter, the sound low and strange and sacred. Candlelight licked across her skin, dancing over the sharp lines of cheekbones and collarbone, casting shadows like claws.
“You came,” she said. Her voice was not a question—it was a certainty.
I stopped just past the threshold. “I always do,” I said, and in that moment, I didn’t know if I meant it literally or metaphorically. With her, lines blurred.
She moved like wind wrapped in lace—slow, deliberate, a force that didn’t ask permission. She circled me, one finger trailing along my arm, the fabric of my sleeve doing nothing to dull the heat. Down my ribs, up to the base of my neck. A touch that was not gentle, but purposeful. Claiming.
I shivered.
“You’re trembling,” she said, and there was delight in her tone. “Good.”
She stopped in front of me, staring up into my eyes. Hers were obsidian rimmed with starlight—impossible and undeniable. “You want to suffer beautifully, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
She didn’t ask for permission after that. She didn’t need to. It was already written in every breath I took in her presence. I was already hers. Willing. Waiting.
Her palm pressed flat against my chest, and with a single push, I sank to my knees—not from force, but from instinct. Gravity bent around her.
She smiled. “There. That’s better.”
Her fingers wove into my hair—not cruelly, but with ownership. Possession. As if my body was the altar, and she the priestess anointing it.
She lowered herself onto my thigh, one knee on either side, the weight of her like a crown I had longed to wear. The leather and lace of her garments rasped against me as she moved, grinding slowly, deliberately, as if painting a sigil of control across my skin.
“You crave the chaos I bring,” she murmured, her lips brushing my ear. “You want to be ruined by me.”
My moan was answer enough.
She laughed again—a low, wicked sound that slipped beneath my skin and stayed there. Her mouth crashed against mine, and it was not a kiss, but an ignition. Her lips were fire. Her teeth were command. She kissed like she meant to leave marks.
When she pressed her fingers to my lips, I opened without hesitation. She fed me her desire like it was sacred wine, and I drank with reverence.
“You are mine when I want you,” she said, her breath a storm. “And I always want you when I’m wicked.”
And I—wept. Not from pain. Not even from pleasure. But from the way it felt to be seen like this: raw, unhidden, and holy.
That night, I became part of her ritual.
Marked by her fire. Owned by her will. A moth, finally consumed by the flame that called me home.
Closing Note
The first chapter has opened the doors to a world of shadow, fire, and sacred surrender. Lilith and Gabriel’s connection is one of reverent intensity—where power, trust, and desire collide in ways that are both beautiful and dangerous.
As you linger in the chapel’s candlelit darkness, remember: what unfolds is not for the faint of heart, but for those willing to witness love in its rawest, most unguarded form. Let the fire linger, and step carefully into what comes next.
—Rowan Evans
Of Ashes & Reverence
Chapter Two | The First Spark The first sparks of desire ignite between Lilith and Gabriel. A chapter of observation, fascination, and sacred chaos where glances and gestures become incendiary. Step into a world of shadows, fire, and devotion.
Chapter Three | Scorchmarks Chapter Three of Of Ashes & Reverence leads you into the silence after fire—the place where worship and ruin are inseparable. Lilith and Gabriel step deeper into their sacred chaos, where strength is redefined, and surrender leaves scars that feel like prayer.
Journey into the Hexverse
Coven of Chaos— B.D. Nightshade & Hex Nightshade Fire and ink collide. Warriors of ruin and witches of reverence rise in a covenant forged in chaos.
Hymn & Heresy— HxNightshade Feral devotion. Sacred ache. Worship and blasphemy entwined in desire’s dark embrace.
Sanguine Serenade— HxNightshade Craving tastes like blood. Passion flirts with danger. Step into forbidden night, and let the fire consume you.
Feral Cathedral— Hex Nightshade Chaos and desire entwined. Wolves of want, teeth and pulse as scripture. Worship, collide, and become a cathedral of fire and breath.
… from across the Hexverse…
Litany & Tongue— Rowan Evans Devotion in breath and tongue, confession in fire. Verse as worship, ache as scripture.
Unapologetically Biased— Rowan Evans Loyalty to chaos, desire for flaws. Worship the storm that leaves you undone.
The Church of You— B.D. Nightshade Flesh as scripture. Desire as religion. Kneel in fire, rise in devotion.
Claim Me— B.D. Nightshade Power, touch, command. Skin as altar, resistance undone, desire the only law.
✦ Poetic Commissions by Rowan Evans ✦
Every word I write is a devotion, a fragment of shadow and light carefully shaped into verse. On my Ko-fi, I offer custom poems, personalized rituals in language, and lyrical messages crafted just for you—or someone you wish to honor, surprise, or remember.
Whether you seek:
A poem for a loved one, friend, or muse
A ritualized or thematic verse for special occasions
A written reflection to say everything you struggle to
…each commission is approached with care, reverence, and the intensity of my signature Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism.
✨ Special Offer:Use code NGCR25 at checkout to receive 25% off any commission until the end of the month. Let these words become your keepsake, your offering, your moment of devotion.
In every myth, there is a shadow cast by a cathedral’s ghost; in every son who claims that shadow, a prayer whispered in defiance. This is the confessional of a child born of ruin and rebellion— sworn not to brokenness, but to the fierce holiness of becoming. This is…
A sentinel between shadow and dawn — the First Son’s vigil burns quietly, but it burns still.
☽The Vigil of the First Son☾ Prose by Rowan Evans
I was not born from cathedral shadows— I fell from another height, beneath painted canvas and sawdust air, where faith meant catching and being caught.
But the fall came anyway. And in the ruin, he found me— the Broken Saint, robed in mourning. He offered me a name forged from grief, and I took it, though my palms still smelled of flight and chalk.
They call me heir, as if shadow is all I have inherited. But gods know, I am more:
I have bled in these alleys, yes— but I have danced on rooftops, too, laughter spilling into the bruised dawn, a reminder that even vigil can be alive.
He is the shadow. I am the light who learned to love the dark without letting it devour me.
Sometimes guilt creeps in— that I can still love where he has walled himself off, that I can still smile where he only mourns.
But hope is rebellion, too— a heresy against a city built on scars.
Tonight, the moon crowns my brow in borrowed silver, and Blüdhaven breathes below—cracked, imperfect, alive.
I watch from these heights: a sentinel, a son, still learning.
I am not him. And gods, that is my salvation.
☽ Benediction ☾
May the shadow teach you mercy. May your scars be the map to your salvation. And though the night will call, may your first vigil blaze bright enough to be seen from every dawn.
🔗 You might also like…
Every vigil casts its own shadow. If The Vigil of the First Son has found a quiet corner in your marrow, you may also wander these chapels of ruin and devotion:
Each is a prayer, a confession, a testament carved in bruise, bone, and breath. May you find something of yourself between the shadows and the candlelight.
If my words speak to you, and you’d like to help keep this flame burning — or if you’d like a custom poem woven just for you (or someone dear) — you can do so here:
There is a cathedral within me, built from grief and devotion, haunted by prayers I can no longer remember yet cannot forget. “Haunted Cathedral” is my offering to those who know the tenderness of ruin — who find, even among broken stones and shadows, the last stubborn flicker of reverence.
“Haunted Cathedral” Prose by Rowan Evans
I walk through the cathedral of myself — arches aching skyward, ribs of stone straining toward a heaven that has long since turned its gaze away.
The nave is empty, but it is not silent. Whispers cling to the vaulted ceilings, prayers half-remembered, half-recanted, swirling like ash caught in a draft. My footsteps echo against marble veined with old grief, each step a soft betrayal of the stillness I pretend to keep.
The air tastes of candle wax and regret — sweet and bitter, like the memory of devotion that soured into doubt. Shadows pool in corners where saints once stood watch, now faceless, their blessings worn smooth by centuries of pleading hands.
In this place, my heart beats too loudly. Every nerve is laid bare, raw as a confession. Thoughts move like trespassers through ruined chapels of memory, knocking over reliquaries I had tried to keep locked away. Dust rises from the wreckage, thick and choking, until every breath feels like penance.
I trace a finger over the cracked altar, splinters biting into my skin until I bleed. The sting feels holy — proof that something inside me still answers pain with pulse. The blood beads, dark as wine in the dying light, and for a breath, I almost believe sacrifice could still bring salvation.
Above, stained glass windows stare down, their colors dimmed to bruised violet and funeral blue. Fragments of lost saints scatter across the cold floor, sharp as broken vows. Moonlight seeps through, limning every ruin in silver sorrow.
And yet — even in ruin, there is a terrible beauty here. The decay curls elegant as ivy; sorrow softens stone into tenderness. Loneliness hangs heavy, but it is an intimacy I almost welcome — to be alone with these ghosts, to feel them press close, cloaked in incense and shadow.
I close my eyes and rest my forehead against the altar. The cold bites my skin, grounding me. Somewhere in the deepest dark, a memory stirs — of softer days, laughter carried like hymns on warm air. But it fades quickly, swallowed by the quiet rot of what remains.
I open my eyes to emptiness once more. No angels descend. No absolution is offered. Only the silent echo of my heartbeat in stone chambers, and the ache that feels both curse and companion.
This is my cathedral: haunted, hollow, holy in its ruin. A testament not to faith, but to endurance. And though every step draws blood, still I walk its length — because even the broken places remember how to hold devotion.
Even if that devotion is nothing more than my own longing, echoing back at me across the cold marble floor.
✦ Closing Words ✦
Leave your offering of silence at the threshold, and wander these shadowed halls as you will. Here, every crack is a scripture of survival; every ghost, a hymn half-remembered.
May you carry this ruin gently within you — not as curse, but as covenant. For even broken stone remembers the prayers whispered long after the choir fell silent.
And should your own heart ever fracture, let it echo not with despair — but with the soft, stubborn vow to remain.
Poetry by Rowan Evans 