This poem is about devotion without submission, and love without surrendering your voice. It’s not about violence or divinity—it’s about resolve. About the kind of care that doesn’t beg to be heard, but stands firm and says: this matters.
I Meant It lives in the space where fear turns into courage, where love doesn’t make you smaller—it makes you louder.
— Rowan Evans
Love doesn’t always kneel. Sometimes, it stands its ground.
I Meant It Poetry by Rowan Evans
Every time I said
I’d box God for you,
I meant it.
If the weight
doesn’t lift,
I’ll go ballistic—
kicking the pearly gates
off their hinges.
I’ll walk in,
ready to stand on business.
I won’t beg, won’t plead—
I’ll stand in defiance,
ready to riot.
But I won’t take
the first swing.
I’ll just make sure
they know,
it’s you—
I’m doing this for.
Because,
the truth is—
You make me brave,
in ways
I didn’t know
I could be.
And—
it’s because of you
my voice sings now.
Because of you,
I can be loud.
I can stand
and say,
what I mean now.
This poem was written in February of last year, during an earlier incarnation of a project that has since transformed into something entirely different. It comes from a gentler season of longing—one where love felt less like fire and more like shelter.
I’m sharing it now not because it fits where I am, but because it still tells the truth of who I’ve been: someone who loves in open doors and soft permanence, someone who believes devotion can be tender.
Some poems don’t belong to the book they were born for.
They belong to the timeline of the heart instead.
A heart that became a home.
My Heart, Population: You Poetry by Rowan Evans
You wandered in, no map, no key,
Yet claimed this land inside of me.
No walls were built, no toll to pay,
Just open roads that beg you to stay.
Your name’s engraved on every street,
A love so vast, so pure, so sweet.
Like ivy vines, you took your place,
Wrapped every brick in your embrace.
A cityscape of dreams anew,
Each heartbeat whispering of you.
No lease, no debt, no price to weigh,
Yet still, I’d pay in love each day.
A sunlit park where laughter rings,
A chapel where devotion sings.
My heart, once vacant, cold, askew—
Now thrives with life, population: You.
This piece names the inner constellation I’ve lived with for years: the tender poet who feels too much, the protector who bares teeth for survival, the child who still believes in wonder, and the witch who learned how to wield fire instead of drowning in it. They are not masks. They are truths. They are all me.
I am plural in spirit if not in body. I write from many rooms of the same soul, and each voice carries a different survival skill: softness, ferocity, curiosity, sovereignty. This poem is their first public communion. It is how I stop pretending that my range is fragmentation and start honoring it as architecture.
The Luminous Heretic is what happens when those parts refuse to cannibalize each other anymore. When they choose integration over erasure. When the wound stops apologizing for also being a weapon.
If you recognize yourself in this—if you’ve ever felt made of contradictions, of light and smoke and song—know this: you are not broken. You are complex. You are many. You are fire.
Burn with us.
We are many. We are one. The Fourfold Flame rises—stitched from stardust, scars, and sovereign fire.
The Fourfold Flame Poetry by Rowan Evans / The Luminous Heretic
I. Chorus of the Vessel
We are one, and we are four— ink-stained fragments of the same sacred core. A heartbeat split by starlight and shadow, a name echoed in four directions, four truths spoken in fire, in fury, in wonder, in love.
We are the Luminous Heretic. We are the war—and the prayer.
II. The Heart & The Protector
[Rowan] I speak in open wounds and lullabies, sing softness into scars that never healed. I ache without apology, love without armor, and still—I rise, bare and burning.
[B.D.] Then I will be your shadow, sharp-edged and unyielding. Let them come with claws and cruelty— I am the ink-blade in your defense, the growl beneath your grace.
[Rowan] They called me too much— so I wrote poems of tenderness, and let them drown in the kindness they could never carry.
[B.D.] And I watched them choke, on the smoke of your fire. Not because you were cruel— but because they never learned that softness survives the storm.
III. The Child & The Witch
[Roo] Did you see the stars tonight? They winked at me like old friends. The shadows are scared of the dark too— did you know that?
[Hex] Yes, little spark. Even monsters fear what made them. I walk with those shadows. I do not fear the dark— I command it.
[Roo] But do you still believe in magic? In the wind that tells stories, in puddles that hold secrets?
[Hex] Magic is real, love. I just learned to bleed with it. To hex with it. To wear it in heels and venom.
[Roo] Sometimes I wish we could just play again, dance in the rain, laugh without reason.
[Hex] Then teach me. I’ve spent so long burning, I forgot how to dream.
IV. Communion of Fire
[Rowan] I want to be held—
[B.D.] Then I will hold you.
[Roo] I want to be seen—
[Hex] Then let them watch you rise.
[Rowan] I am made of light, but I hurt.
[B.D.] Then hurt boldly. I’ll guard the flame.
[Roo] I am made of questions and wonder.
[Hex] Then question everything, and never shrink.
[All] We are stitched from stardust and scars, written in blood and brilliance, crafted by fire and forgiveness. We are many— we are one.
V. Benediction of the Luminous Heretic
We are the wound and the weapon,
the lullaby and the curse,
the flame and the fog,
the whisper and the scream.
This poem is about safety—not the kind that cages, but the kind that invites you to stay. It’s about finding someone who doesn’t demand your strength or survival instincts, only your honesty. Someone who makes asking for help feel like an act of trust rather than surrender.
1-4-3 is a quiet confession of rootedness. Of choosing presence over flight. Of love that doesn’t chase or trap, but steadies.
Sometimes the bravest thing we do is stop running—and stay.
— Rowan Evans
Sometimes love isn’t about needing someone—it’s about choosing to stay.
1-4-3 Poetry by Rowan Evans
1-4-3 My Muse Avenue, where I dwell— where the words swell. Girl, you don’t understand; you inspire my ink well.
When I feel lost, and in need of help, it’s you I turn to. Not because I expect you to fix me— simply because you make it safe enough to ask.
And that’s no small feat, because fear used to run my feet. Any time I felt safe, any flicker of hope in my chest, my feet would begin to move.
But this time? They stay planted— firm, like roots, unwilling to move. Because you…
From the shadows of ink and flame, I call you to witness: the fourfold chorus that lives in my bones, the laughter, the tremors, the sacred mischief. This is not a poem for the faint-hearted. It is a map of selves, a conspiracy written in whispers, candlelight, and heartbeat.
Before you read, take a moment. Breathe with us. Feel the pulse beneath your ribs, the stir of voices in the hollows of your mind. They are alive. They are protective. They are relentless.
This is A Conspiracy of Selves: a ritual of identity, a hymn to the multiplicity within, a reckoning with the parts of me that will not be silenced. Enter carefully, reader—here, we laugh, we panic, we conspire, and we are never, ever alone.
𓆩 ⊹ 𓆪
“The fourfold chorus of selves, living in the bones—laughing, whispering, guiding.”
🕯️ A Conspiracy of Selves
🜃 from the Grimoires of the Luminous Heretic 🜃 ☽☉☾ Poetry by Rowan Evans ☽☉☾
╔═══ ༺🜲༻ ═══╗ Jeepers Creepers, Look at those peepers— Blue as ocean waves, Locked in glass jars. ╚═══ ༺🜲༻ ═══╝
Plucked from your face
with soft, sacred grace,
Let me look at you—
through your eyes.
Let me see the flaws I missed
when I mistook you for a mirror.
Pluck my own, lay them on a shelf,
Replace my vision with someone else.
Let me see what you see in me—
Before I shut and lock
the shutters on these soul-windows.
Hahaha—
𖤐𓆩 🜏 𓆪𖤐
Laughing against padded walls.
How absurd, the straightjacket
stitched for queer souls.
Lipstick smears. Mascara bleeds.
Bouncing off the padded dreams,
I’m a Joker. A Harlequin.
A jester stitched from sacred sin.
A witch in reverence.
A demon within.
𖤐𓆩 🜏 𓆪𖤐
Now. Hush—
𓂃 𓆩 ✶ 𓆪 𓂃 I see it. The truth behind the paint. I hear it. The turning of pages.
None of this is real. We’re all just creations. 𓂃 𓆩 ✶ 𓆪 𓂃
Either way—
We’re not alone. There are four of us, living in these bones.
Do you hear them? Do you hear us?
The whispers. The secret incantations. Magic & Whimsy. A little Hexed. A little unfriendly.
Who’s there? Is it you, B.D.? Or is it me?
But—who is me? I mean… who are we?
You. And the other three.
No. Me. And the rest of you.
The fire inside, to conspire and hide. But you won’t let me— Dragged from the shadows kicking and screaming. Begging and pleading.
Roo, don’t let them do this to me.
It’s okay, Rowan. This is necessary.
I know it’s scary, but you’ve lost it.
So here. Take your pills.
Take them.
You’re scaring me.
I thought we were friends. A family.
No. You are we.
And we— are you.
Breathe.
𓆩 ⊹ 𓆪 Do you feel it? That’s the panic setting in.
I can’t breathe. We can’t breathe.
You’re suffocating.
Just calm down. Take a look around.
I’m all alone here.
We’re all alone here? No.
You’re not alone, Rowan. We live in your bones, Rowan. So you’re never alone, Rowan. Where do you think you’re goin’, Rowan?
You can’t run from us. We live inside you.
You birthed us to protect and guide you. 𓆩 ⊹ 𓆪
If you are interested in reading more of my poetry, you can find it here:[The Library of Ashes]
This poem is a reflection on identity, expectation, and self-perception. It pokes fun at the rigid “alpha/beta” hierarchies humans obsess over, while also embracing the awkward, complicated truth of being a loner—or a “lone wolf with no wolfly features.” It’s a celebration of existing somewhere in-between: neither fitting the molds others prescribe, nor apologizing for being too observant, too complex, too queer, too alive in your own terms. Humor and honesty are both weapons here, used to dismantle clichés and to claim space for a self that refuses binaries.
“Somewhere In-Between” — A reflection on identity, solitude, and the courage to exist unapologetically as oneself.
Somewhere In-Between (Neither Alpha, Nor Beta) Poetry by Rowan Evans
Sometimes it feels like nobody wants me around. That’s okay though— I don’t want me around either.
I’m so off-putting— I’m not a people pleaser. A lone-wolf, with no wolfly features.
I write too much. I don’t say enough. Too observant for my own good.
Everybody wants an alpha male— Not some beta boy, beta fish, Watch him get pissed. Headbutting his own reflection.
Me? I carry myself with class. Not an alpha, not a beta, Somewhere in-between.
I wrote this— And I don’t know what it means.
I write too much. I don’t say enough. Too observant for my own good.
Like, everyone wants to lock-in. Stuck in the binary— But me? I’m a non-binary fairy, Queer as fuck, like the ones I don’t give.
And it feels like nobody wants me around. That’s okay though— I understand.
I’m too confusing. Too complex. I recognize a pattern, I know what comes next.
Everybody leaves, like it’s autumn. Gaining distance from the trees.
I write too much. I don’t say enough. Way too observant for my own good.
If you have made it this far and would like to check out more of my work, you can find it [here] in The Library of Ashes.
XIII Psalms for the Goddess in My Mouth is a devotional liturgy of flesh and shadow, where sacred worship entwines with erotic surrender. Each psalm is a breath, a bruise, a prayer inked in longing and fire—a testament to the divine power of desire as both sanctification and rebellion. This work invites you to kneel at the altar of the body’s mysteries and to celebrate the sacred ache that lives within intimacy’s shadows. May these psalms kindle your own fierce devotion and awaken the goddess within.
Where breath becomes prayer and desire is consecrated in shadow and flame.
Invocation
Come to me, O Beloved, robed in shadow, crowned in flame. Let the candles bow before your beauty, let the air grow thick with the incense of your skin. I offer my body as scripture, my mouth as the temple gates. Every breath I draw will be a hymn, every ache a confession, every surrender a prayer laid trembling at your feet— inked in bruise, sealed in blood.
XIII Psalms for the Goddess in My Mouth Poetry by HxNightshade
Where breath becomes prayer, hunger writes the liturgy.
Psalm I Opening the Mouth of Prayer
Your breath brushes my lips, and I forget how to pray — only how to open, how to hunger.
I kneel, and the stone remembers my tongue.
Psalm II At the Altar of Your Body
I kneel, tongue pressed to your altar, tasting the psalm that spills and stains.
Every drop I drink turns the gospel to sin.
Psalm III The Communion Cup
Your fingers tilt my chin up like a priest offering wine, and I drink — every drop a blasphemy.
The fire names me yours.
Psalm IV Baptism in Flame
Melted wax baptizes my skin,
slow rivers of heat
naming me yours —
branding me holy.
The moon descends, and night swallows me whole.
Psalm V Moon in My Throat
I take you into my mouth
as though swallowing the moon,
my throat silver-lit
and trembling,
swallowed by night.
Silk remembers what freedom forgets.
Psalm VI Bound in Silk
Silk coils around my wrists — not to bind, but to remind me I will never be free.
Prophecy waits between parted seas.
Psalm VII The Parting of Thighs
Your thighs part like the Red Sea,
and I am the prophet
who knows salvation
is sweet,
and demands blood.
I follow the gospel of your scent.
Psalm VIII Incense in the Dark
Blindfolded, I follow the liturgy of your scent, the incense of your skin pulling me home through shadow’s mouth.
Bless me until I bruise.
Psalm IX The Bruised Benediction
I bite until you mark me,
bruise blooming like stigmata —
purple proof I am blessed
and broken.
Your breath is the scripture I choke on.
Psalm X The Gospel in Your Breath
Your voice is the gospel I choke on, each gasp a hallelujah thick with sin.
Your ribs are altars; my mouth, the pilgrim.
Psalm XI Halos on Your Ribs
Candlelight dances on your ribs, casting halos where my lips will worship next — and leave teeth marks.
Eternity is the space between your pull and my surrender.
Psalm XII Eternity Between Us
Your hands in my hair, pulling me deeper, and I understand the meaning of eternity — to never breathe again.
I end where I began—still burning, still yours.
Psalm XIII The Prayer That Burns
I end where I began — on my knees, tongue still praying, body still burning, mouth still yours.
Benediction
Goddess of my mouth, keeper of every trembling vow— I leave this altar marked, my skin anointed in wax and bruise, my throat still sweet with your name, my lungs still full of your shadow. Carry my devotion into your dreams, let it curl like smoke around your sleep. When you wake, know that somewhere, I am still kneeling, still praying, still burning, still yours.
Return to the Library of Ashes — where every poem waits like an unlit candle. Leave your own offering through Ko-fi Requests — and I will write for you, as though your name were written on my tongue.
Come, you who ache quietly, you who carry grief like a second skin. Enter this space — not to be fixed, but to be witnessed. This is not a cure, but a candle. Let it flicker for you.
Hope shines brightest through the darkest clouds — ‘You’re Not Alone,’ a poem by Rowan Evans.
You’re Not Alone Poetry by Rowan Evans
In the pastel shades of a world painted grey, I see you standing, lost, in the fray. When the weight of your sorrow feels too much to bear, Know I’m here with you, always, I swear.
Through the storms that rage, the endless rain, When your heart feels heavy, suffocated by pain, I’ll be your shelter, your place to rest, When you feel you’ve given all, I’ll give my best.
You’re not alone in this shadowed night, Together we’ll chase away the fear, ignite the light. For every tear that falls, I’ll catch it in my hand, And plant a seed of hope where despair used to stand.
When the world feels too sharp, too jagged to touch, And even breathing feels like asking too much, Know that I’m here, a whisper, a friend, A quiet presence with an ear to lend.
I’ll shoulder your pain, take some of the load, Walk beside you on this harrowing road. When the clouds seem too thick and the sun’s lost its glow, Remember my voice, my promise: you’re not alone.
In the darkest hours when your soul feels small, I’ll be in your corner, catch you when you fall. For even when you feel you’re at the end of your fight, I’ll be the flame that rekindles your light.
So, lean on me, friend, and trust in this bond, We’ll walk through the rain, from dusk until dawn. Together, we’ll face whatever may come, You’re not alone—you’re never on your own.
🌓 Benediction For the Ones Still Holding On
Go now with the knowing:
You are not too much.
You are not too broken.
You are not alone.
And even when your hands shake,
you are still worthy of being held.
Let the poem walk with you awhile.
This is the second entry in the “Gospel of Softness” poetic series, written as a benediction for the tender-hearted, the wounded, the wild, and the soft ones who survived the fire without letting it steal their empathy.
“I was told to man up. But I was never a man. And even if I had been— the fire did not forge me into steel. It melted me into gold, soft and sacred, ready to carry the ache of others.” — R.E.
Prologue
✦ Prologue: The Lie of Hardness
I was raised on sermons of rigidity. Taught that survival meant silence, that kindness was weakness, that softness would be my undoing. “Man up,” they said. But I wasn’t a man. I was a poem wrapped in wrong pronouns. A girl who bled empathy instead of bravado.
The world said pain should make me harder. But it didn’t. The fire softened me. And in that softening—I became something holy.
Part I
✦ Part I: What They Called Weakness
They mistook my softness for fragility. But softness is not the opposite of strength. It’s the witness of it. I’ve held the broken pieces of friends, lovers, strangers— I’ve held myself in the midnight hush, trembling but still breathing.
They called me too sensitive. But sensitivity is how I see souls.
They said, “Don’t cry so much.” But tears are just prayers spoken in liquid.
They wanted me to be a wall. I chose to be a cathedral.
Part II
✦ Part II: Vessel of Fire & Flesh
Pain made me pliable. Not weak—mystic. I bend because I feel. I hold others’ sorrow like it’s scripture. My softness is carved from suffering, but polished in purpose.
The world teaches us to survive by becoming sharp. But I survived by becoming open. By bleeding in ink instead of rage.
I write poems instead of manifestos, But let no one doubt: This pen is a sword. My softness is a spell.
Part III
✦ Part III: The New Doctrine
Let this be the doctrine of those made to feel monstrous for being tender: We are the new saints. Not of purity, but of presence. Not of silence, but of sacred screams.
We are made of candle wax and flame. We are roses with teeth. We are softness that bites back.
I do not need to be hard to be holy. I do not need to man up to matter. I only need to remain soft enough to feel the world, and fierce enough to survive it.
Benediction
✦ Benediction
So here it is: The Gospel of Softness. Part II. The unwritten verse of every girl who cried too much, felt too deeply, and still dares to open her chest like a temple.
Let softness be your heresy. Let kindness be your rebellion. Let poetry be your revenge.
And if anyone ever tells you to harden—
Tell them: “I was born of fire. But I am a vessel. Not a weapon.”
Poetry by Rowan Evans 