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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: Poetic-Metaphors

  • Where the Bones Refuse to Break

    Rowan Evans

    I balance on the splintered edge of dusk,
    where the horizon blinks like a dying pulse,
    and every breath feels borrowed
    from a ghost I used to be.

    There is no scream left in my marrow,
    only the hum of static silence—
    a lullaby for the hollowed,
    a prayer without a god.

    Pain is a second spine
    threaded through my ribs like piano wire.
    I don’t flinch when it sings anymore,
    I’ve grown fond of its chorus.

    But you—
    you are the whisper between my fractures,
    the only warmth in this cathedral of frost,
    the lone candle still brave enough to burn.

    When you’re near,
    the ash learns to dream again.
    I carry the weight not because I must,
    but because you are worth the breaking.

    Yet when I’m alone,
    I decay in soft installments,
    shedding pieces of self like dead petals—
    graceful, unnoticed,
    until nothing remains but a name echoing in smoke.

    Don’t leave me
    to collapse in my own absence.
    Stay—be the tether that keeps me flesh.
    I fear I’ll become mist if you turn away.

    But I see your heaviness too,
    your shoulders bowed like twilight trees
    bracing for one more storm.
    So let me be your scaffold,
    your sanctum of sighs.
    Let me soften the hurt in your blood
    the way you alchemized mine into light.

    I will pour every last drop of myself
    into the cracks that threaten you,
    until neither of us has to stand alone
    on the trembling precipice again.

    Together,
    we’ll make a home
    from all the pieces that refused to shatter.

  • The Soft Apocalypse of Loving You

    Rowan Evans

    I was not prepared for you—
    not for the quiet cataclysm
    you carried in your smile,
    or the way your voice
    broke open a hidden cathedral
    in my chest.

    Loving you feels like the world ending
    slowly, beautifully—
    as if the stars decided to fall
    not in ruin,
    but in reverence.

    You are the prophecy I never believed I deserved,
    a ruin I would rebuild in every lifetime.
    And if your trust is a shattered chalice,
    I will drink from the broken glass
    until my lips remember the taste of you
    without bleeding.

    You once laughed,
    lightly, like nothing hurt.
    But I know better—
    I saw the earthquakes behind your eyelids,
    heard the quiet sobs tucked between syllables
    when you whispered “I’m okay.”

    You don’t have to be brave with me.

    Let the mascara run like holy water.
    Let your fears rattle the stained-glass ribs of my devotion.
    I will not look away.
    I will hold your sorrow like relics—
    with both hands and an aching awe.

    You once said you weren’t used to someone staying.
    So I stayed.
    Through your silences,
    your firestorms,
    your soft retreats into shadow.

    I stayed because loving you
    isn’t something I do.
    It’s something I am.

    You are every sacred metaphor
    my soul ever dreamed.
    A poem written in the margins
    of a dying god’s last confession.
    A heartbeat that taught mine
    how to echo.

    And if you never say “I love you” back—
    if this is all unreciprocated myth,
    a cathedral without a congregation—
    then I will still leave the candles burning.

    Because my love isn’t a question
    waiting for an answer.

    It is the answer.

    And it says:
    You are worth the end of the world,
    again and again,
    until all that’s left
    is light.

  • Don’t Need to Be First, I Just Want to Be The Last

    Rowan Evans

    I didn’t arrive with fireworks.
    No trumpet of fate announced my coming.
    I stepped into your life
    like rain slipping through the cracks of an old roof—
    gentle, persistent, quiet.

    You didn’t see me at first,
    your eyes were too full of smoke
    from the fires they set in your soul.
    But I saw you—
    the way moonlight sees a battlefield after war,
    not for the blood,
    but for the wildflowers growing through the bones.

    They loved you like a tempest,
    tore through your softness
    and called it passion.
    They mistook your silence for surrender
    and your loyalty for something to conquer.
    But I am not a storm—
    I am the stillness that follows.
    I am the breath you forgot to take.

    You don’t need to open the door all at once.
    Leave it ajar—
    I’ll wait on the porch of your trust
    until your ribs remember how to unlock.

    They got to your heart first—
    left it threadbare and trembling.
    But I’ll be the one who sits beside it
    without asking it to perform.
    You don’t need to shine for me—
    I will love you in shadow.

    Let them be the architects of your ache.
    I will be the gardener of your healing.
    I’ll trace the map of your scars
    like constellations no one else stayed to name,
    and I’ll kiss each one
    like a holy place
    I am blessed to touch.

    I don’t need to be the first to hold your hand,
    just the last to let it go.

    Let them be the spark,
    the flame,
    the blaze that blinded.
    I’ll be the hearth—
    quiet, warm,
    steady in the long winter of your doubt.

    You are not shattered, my love—
    you are stained glass,
    lit from within.
    And I am the pew beneath your cathedral soul,
    content just to be close,
    just to kneel and whisper your name
    like a sacred hymn.

    You are not a burden.
    You are a blessing that learned to walk with a limp.
    You are the poem they tried to rewrite,
    but I’ll read you as you are—
    every crossed-out line, every redacted verse,
    every unfinished sentence—
    and still call you complete.

    Because I don’t want to be your first.
    Let them hold that hollow crown.
    I want to be your last—
    the one who stays
    when the curtain falls and the world forgets,
    the one who wraps their arms around the quiet ache
    and says, I see you.
    You don’t have to run anymore.

    And when the night softens into dawn,
    I will be the gentle hand that brushes your hair from your face—
    warm fingertips tracing the curve of your cheek,
    the subtle scent of rain and jasmine lingering on your skin,
    the quiet breath that hums your favorite song—
    a lullaby that holds you safe.

    I will be the promise
    in the slow unfolding of morning light,
    the softness of a whispered name
    lingering between us like a secret.

    Let them fade like shadows on forgotten walls.
    I will be the light in your slow sunrise—
    steadfast, unwavering,
    the last embrace
    you reach for
    when the world grows still.