✦ Author’s Note ✦

This poem is both a confession and a mirror. It reflects the invisible battles so many of us fight while the world mistakes our survival for apathy. The italicized lines aren’t just quotes — they’re echoes of judgment, the voices that press in on anyone living with trauma, anxiety, or panic.

Survive is my answer to them.
Survival isn’t weakness; it’s a skill. It’s an art form. It’s a rebellion so quiet most people never hear it, but it exists in every single breath we take after thinking we couldn’t.

If you’ve ever been made to feel “less than” for simply keeping yourself alive, this poem is for you.

Survive
Poetry by Rowan Evans

I walk through a world
that’s constantly judging,
while I’m just trying to keep
my head above the waves.
I panic at the little things,
the things you all take for granted.

You get behind the wheel
without a second thought,
and for me, it causes pause
because I remember the danger.
The fact that everything
is out of my control.

I just want to be normal,
I just want to be whole.
But I’m fighting against my brain,
I’m fighting against past pain
and your judging stares.
It’s okay, I know, nobody cares.

“You don’t know how to cook.”
“You don’t know how to drive.”

I’m fighting these thoughts,
just trying to stay alive.
I’ve got anxiety with panic attacks,
I can’t breathe when the panic attacks—
so please, don’t look at me
like I’m lazy, like I don’t want to learn.
It hurts.
I’m just trying to keep myself alive,
I’m really just tryin’ to survive.

But survival is not weakness.
It’s the hardest art I know.
Every day I rise again,
and that, even if you never see it…
is my quietest rebellion.

If this piece resonates with you, check out more of my work in—The Library of Ashes.