Author’s Note

This poem came from the space between impulse and consequence—the moment when truth is sharp enough to wound, and restraint becomes a form of survival. Etched in Memory is about knowing exactly how much damage your words can do, and choosing silence not because you are wrong, but because you are precise.

Some of us learn early that a look can say too much, that honesty—when fully unleashed—doesn’t fade. It marks. It lingers. It becomes permanent.

This piece is a quiet confession of power held back, of violence softened into poetry, of restraint learned the hard way. Not because the truth wasn’t there—but because it would have lasted.

— Rowan Evans

Etched in Memory
Poetry by Rowan Evans

My eyes learned restraint—
before my mouth ever did.
So I wouldn’t betray myself
when I talked my shit.

It was all—
facts (fax), no printer.
I did not
speak a lie.

But I
would try
not to speak at all.

Because my eyes
learned restraint—
before my mouth ever did.

Yet, they would
always
push me.

Until…

I would
poetically
dissect them—

methodically
dismember,
until they
remember.
My words
etched
in memory.

But my eyes
learned restraint—
before my mouth ever did.

So I look away…

to stop this shit.

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