Author’s Note

I’ve written a lot of poems about dreams.

At this point, it’s probably one of the most consistent threads running through my work.

The reason is simple:

Dreams don’t feel imaginary to me.

They feel remembered.

Not while I’m fully awake. Not after I’ve had time to process them. But in those first moments between sleeping and waking, there’s often a strange overlap where the emotions arrive before reality does.

For a brief moment, everything feels true.

The conversation happened. The place existed. The person was there.

Then awareness returns.

The room comes back. The walls come back. The weight of the body comes back.

And with it comes the realization that none of it happened.

That’s the feeling this poem is trying to capture.

Not the dream itself, but the return from it.

The title became the key.

Because waking up doesn’t feel like opening my eyes.

It feels like returning to my bones.

Returning to gravity. Returning to limitation. Returning to the version of reality that can be touched and verified.

The strange thing is that the emotions don’t disappear when the dream does.

The dream fades.

The feelings stay.

And sometimes that lingering feeling creates a kind of grief that is difficult to explain to people who don’t experience dreams this way.

A quiet grief.

Not because something real was lost.

But because, for a moment, it felt real enough to matter.

— Rowan Evans

Returning to My Bones
Poetry by Rowan Evans

The moon shimmers over the bay,
suspended in the sky—
the way I feel suspended in her eyes.

And it makes me feel crazy,
because she’s never looked at me—
not really, not in reality.

It’s only happened in dreams.

That’s when I drift
between awake—
and asleep.

This is when
my mind
starts to
wander.

Then it snaps.

I’m back in my room again.

The moon loses its shimmer,
the bay fades from view.
My body tenses as I become
aware again,
of the mattress beneath me—

of the walls that enclose me.

I feel the weight pressing in.
The reality of returning
to my bones.
It’s a quiet grief—
realizing that the emotions
will linger,
but the truth is
it never happened.

And somehow,
that hurts the most.

Journey into the Hexverse…

[Maybe You’ll Want Me Too]
A poem about the subtle shift from knowing someone to constantly thinking about them. Through humor, metaphor, and confession, Maybe You’ll Want Me Too explores affection, attachment, and the fragile hope that being wanted might matter more than being needed.

[Before My Feet Touch the Floor]
What happens when your dreams feel more real than your waking life? Before My Feet Touch the Floor explores the strange grief of waking up, the lingering memory of dream selves, and the quiet question of which version of us is truly real.

[Recognizes Home]
A free-verse poem exploring the difference between love as dependency and love as choice. It challenges the idea that love must be need-based, instead centering the quiet strength of choosing someone while still remaining whole on your own.

[Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3)]
A moonlit shoreline, a rowboat full of ducks, a piggybank with no cents, and a confession hidden in plain sight. Ocean Waves (1, 4, 3) explores how humor, wordplay, and absurdity can become a side door to vulnerability when the truth feels too difficult to say directly.

[L Words & Heart]
A playful, self-aware poem about love, longing, loyalty, and the quiet ways another person can reshape our inner world. What begins as humor slowly reveals a heartfelt confession about affection, imagination, and the faces that linger in our dreams.

[Just Before Waking]
A street that feels familiar. A life that hasn’t happened yet. Just Beyond Waking explores the fragile space between dreams, memory, longing, and the quiet feeling that some futures are already waiting for us.

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