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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: Rowan Evans

  • Disconnected Since Fourteen | Poetry About Belonging & Displacement

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem traces the moment when disconnection stopped being temporary and started feeling structural.
    At fourteen, I didn’t just feel out of place—I felt offline. Like my signal never quite reached the world I was standing in.

    The language of technology felt like the closest mirror for that experience: dropped signals, endless queues, systems that never respond. This isn’t nostalgia, and it isn’t blame—it’s recognition. Naming the feeling that followed me for years before I understood what it was.

    Some people search for belonging.
    Some of us search for a connection that was never stable to begin with.

    — Rowan Evans

    A person sitting alone in a dark room with glowing cables and signal symbols, representing emotional disconnection and longing for belonging.
    Some disconnections start early—and never fully resolve.

    Disconnected Since Fourteen
    (Lost in Queue)
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I used to sit alone, lost in thoughts
    of far off places—far from…
    home.

    I’d write about every one,
    write about them in my…
    poems.

    The way longing bled into art,
    art bled the words from my heart.
    It was the truth spilling—
    feeling homeless,
    since I was fourteen.

    Felt disconnected,
    like the Wi-Fi dropped.
    Mind static, dramatic,
    screaming like…
    dial-up.

    Trying to connect
    to somewhere that never answers.
    Server overloaded,
    lost in queue—
    endless, connection loop.

    I do not belong here.
    Everything feels wrong here.

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

  • Fancy Footwork: A Poem About Craft, Instinct, and Creative Precision

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem is about muscle memory.

    Not the physical kind, but the kind you build over years of showing up — writing through doubt, through silence, through the versions of yourself that didn’t yet know how strong they were becoming.

    Fancy Footwork uses boxing as metaphor, but the real fight happens on the page and in the mind. Every dodge, every feint, every combination comes from long preparation — from learning how to move with intention instead of panic.

    This isn’t bravado. It’s recognition.

    Twenty-three years of practice doesn’t look like luck. It looks like instinct.

    — Rowan Evans

    An abstract illustration of a poet-boxer formed from ink, mid-movement, symbolizing writing as a disciplined and practiced art.
    Writing is muscle memory — every move learned, every strike intentional.

    Fancy Footwork
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    When I put pen to paper,
    my ink becomes a cage
    on the page
    the way I write bars.

    Yeah, my ink flows—
    it floats
    like a butterfly,
    stings like a bee.

    Hit you with that
    one, two and three.
    Right jab, left hook—
    followed by an uppercut.

    It’s fancy footwork,
    the way my ink glides
    and slides across the page.
    It’s a dance,
    choreographed—
    every line precise.

    I duck,
    slip, dodge
    and throw a feint.
    Misdirect,
    then change direction,
    onslaught,
    raining fists.

    Watching everyone
    that considers themselves
    opposition—
    losing their minds,
    as I
    continue to gain
    position.

    They aren’t even
    competition.
    Nobody will
    stop me
    on my ascension.

    Eyes focused
    on the mission.

    I will climb the ladder
    one rung at a time.
    Watch my ranking rise,
    win after win,
    fight after fight—
    see the smile on my face?
    This is
    my championship chase,
    I will claim
    the top place.

    I’ve been preparing for this
    for twenty-three years.
    Shadowboxing
    inside the lines,
    it was me
    versus my mind.

    I was—
    hitting the gym,
    testing reflexes
    building the instinct,
    to move
    the way poetry flows.

    Movement so quick,
    I hit like a flash—
    every jab,
    lands like prose.

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

  • Funeral for a Thirty-Six-Year-Old | A Gothic Birthday Poem by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem is a birthday rite, not a reckoning.

    I’ve always treated birthdays less like milestones and more like ceremonial thresholds—moments to shed a skin, laugh at the ghosts behind me, and step forward with intention. Funeral for a Thirty-Six-Year-Old isn’t about mourning age; it’s about staging its death so something sharper, freer, and more self-aware can take its place.

    Thirty-six feels less like getting older and more like arriving. I’m no longer interested in quiet gratitude or graceful humility—I wanted pageantry, drama, and a little irreverence. This piece is me honoring survival with style, embracing the absurdity of time, and celebrating the fact that I’m still here, still dangerous, still writing.

    If this is a funeral, it’s one where the guest of honor very much refuses to stay dead.

    A gothic figure rising from a velvet coffin in a moonlit mausoleum, symbolizing a theatrical celebration of turning thirty-six.
    Thirty-six isn’t an ending—it’s a resurrection with better lighting.

    Funeral for a Thirty-Six-Year-Old
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I rise from my velvet coffin,
    for birthdays are sacred rituals of vanity,
    thirty-six too perfect for a quiet exit.

    Cobwebs kiss my ankles
    as I stride the mausoleum of my life,
    counting skeletons I’ve danced with
    and candles I’ve lit in the name of style.

    The moon winks at me through shattered panes,
    celestial bodies admire
    a drama queen in full bloom—
    not wilted, not weary, theatrically immortal.

    I sip absinthe from a skull-shaped chalice,
    grinning at the reaper waiting impatiently,
    his scythe tapping to the rhythm of my heartbeat—
    shrug. He’s never been my type.

    Mirrors whisper secrets of my youthful decay,
    I laugh—lines are suggestions,
    wrinkles invitations to flair,
    every grey hair a medal for surviving
    without losing my mind… entirely.

    Birthday cake, molten lava,
    frosted with sarcasm, glittering regrets.
    I devour it with a ceremonial fork,
    toasting myself—
    who else deserves this gothic pageantry?

    The clock ticks, and I bow to time,
    not in surrender, but in acknowledgment:
    I am older, wiser, and infinitely more unhinged.
    let the world tremble at my theatricality—
    I have arrived.

    Candles gutter. Shadows shiver.
    In the mirror’s reflection, I wink—
    thirty-six has never looked this dangerous,
    this decadent, this deliciously insane.

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

  • Sacred Misfits | A K-Pop Inspired Poem About Outsiders, Art, and Identity

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem started as a challenge to myself — a moment of curiosity and play. I wanted to see if I could weave a constellation of K-pop references into a poem without losing sincerity, rhythm, or heart.

    But somewhere along the way, it stopped being about references at all.

    This piece became a quiet dedication to the outsiders, the ones who move differently, create loudly, and refuse to shrink themselves for comfort. It’s about lineage — musical, creative, generational — and about writing for the people who don’t quite fit the mold, but keep building their own anyway.

    This poem is for the misfits, the monsters, the ones finding their voice and stomping forward unapologetically.

    Illustration of a diverse group of artists standing together beneath glowing city lights, symbolizing creativity, rebellion, and belonging.
    For the outsiders, the monsters, and everyone bold enough to carve their own lane.

    Sacred Misfits
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    When I write
    universes are created,
    every stanza
    a BIGBANG.

    It’s no Secret,
    why I write so fast.
    This is real life,
    no special f(x)—
    pen to paper,
    a masterpiece
    in 4Minutes flat.

    I’ve written
    poems to inspire
    women.
    To show them
    they’re all
    Wonder Girls.

    Because I truly believe
    this is a—
    Girls’ Generation.

    I’ve been doing this
    for a long time.
    I’ve been doing this since
    before I was 2NE1.

    Now I write for
    the Stray Kids,
    the sacred misfits—
    and every outcast,
    made to shrink.

    I write for
    the BABYMONSTERs,
    the big stompers—
    and anyone paving
    their own lane.

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

  • Two Words: A Poem About Vulnerability, Consent, and Letting Go

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This poem came from a moment I didn’t expect—where wanting something and resisting it existed at the same time. It’s about consent without force, surrender without demand, and the strange vulnerability of realizing how easily someone can reach you simply by asking

    Two figures standing close together in soft light, conveying quiet emotional intimacy and vulnerability.
    Sometimes surrender isn’t taken—it’s given.

    Two Words
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I’ve never felt like this before—
    never felt this loss of control.

    Two words
    and I can’t stop it.
    Two words
    and I just speak.

    That’s all it takes for me.
    I get a thought,
    I hint at the thought—
    Say it, she said.

    So I said it.

    I didn’t want to.
    She didn’t make me.
    She just asks
    and I fold.

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

  • Băobèi – A Devotional Love Poem by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Băobèi was written last year during a season of longing—when affection felt vast, distant, and almost mythic. It lived quietly in my drafts, waiting for a moment when it could breathe on its own.

    This poem is devotion rendered as geography: islands, blossoms, moonlight, and stars becoming a language for love. It is about carrying someone in every word, every breath, every imagined horizon. About how a name can become a compass.

    Some poems are born loud.
    This one waited.

    Moonlit shoreline with cherry blossoms and glowing flowers beneath a star-filled sky
    A garden of light—where devotion blooms between shore, sky, and dream.

    Băobèi
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Băobèi—
    your beauty rivals that of the Sakura,
    petals like whispered secrets
    drifting through my ink-stained veins.
    And I got your name,
    tatted on the tip of my tongue,
    your essence lives in every word that I say,
    haunting the shadows of my pen,
    echoing in the silence between heartbeats.

    Now I’m hopping islands, in search of
    your divineness. Your royalty,
    I bow to you, your highness.
    I crowned you the queen
    of my twilight kingdom.
    Your loyal subjects,
    all shadows of my thoughts.

    Cherry blossoms fade,
    but your radiance lingers,
    Orchid petals from Mindoro
    drip like honeyed secrets,
    Lotus from distant ponds
    mirrors your serene grace,
    Frangipani drifts across the wind,
    carrying your laughter.
    Sampaguita blooms in hidden corners,
    its tiny white stars like your quiet strength,
    Ylang-ylang whispers perfume into the night,
    each scent a pulse of your heartbeat
    I am drawn to like the tide.

    I trace the heavens in your honor—
    a moon suspended over Manila Bay,
    its reflection trembling across dark water,
    mirroring the tremor in my chest
    each time your name passes my lips.
    The Milky Way drapes over islands and mountains,
    a silken veil for your light to wander beneath,
    and I follow, tracing your essence
    through ink, shadow, and the spaces between heartbeats,
    until the world itself becomes
    a garden of your light.

    You are the rose in my ruin,
    the bloom I cradle in the ashes of my nights,
    the ink I spill across silent pages,
    and I am forever your humble witness,
    your loyal poet in a kingdom
    built from devotion, dusk, and flame.

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

  • Loki: A Poem About Transformation, Chaos, and the Norse Trickster God

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    I wrote Loki on March 1st, 2025, not as a tribute to the pop-culture trickster, but to the old god—the one who exists in contradiction, liminality, and transformation. The Loki of myth is not tidy. He is not easily moralized. He is fire and fracture, ally and adversary, mother and monster, savior and destroyer. He is becoming.

    This poem is less about mythology as history and more about mythology as mirror. Loki has always represented what unsettles systems built on rigidity: fluidity, change, refusal. In many ways, he is the god of those who do not fit neatly into the halls they are born into. Those who are renamed as “problem” when what they truly are is uncontainable.

    Writing this was an act of reclamation. Of honoring the sacredness of contradiction. Of recognizing that to shift, to change, to refuse a single shape, is not betrayal—it is divinity in motion.

    A mystical, shapeshifting figure surrounded by fire and shadow, evoking the Norse god Loki and the power of transformation.
    Not bound by name. Not fixed in form. Becoming is the divine act.

    Loki
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I have been son and mother, father and daughter,
    A whisper on the wind, a fire in the dark.
    I have been the tempest and the calm,
    A shifting shape, a name unchained.

    I was never made to fit in their halls,
    So they twisted my name into a curse.
    They carved my legacy with hands that feared
    What could not be tamed, what would not kneel.

    They call me trickster, traitor, monster—
    But what is a god if not a story rewritten?
    What is truth when bound by mortal tongues,
    When my form is fluid as the rivers they drink?

    I have worn every face, walked every path,
    Yet still, they wish to bind me to one.
    But I am the echo of change, the chaos of fate,
    A dance between dusk and dawn.

    Try as they might to paint me still,
    I will slip through cracks, through time, through names.
    For I am not one, nor two—
    I am all, I am none…

    I am Loki.

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

  • Between Sun & Shore: A Poem About Healing, Love, and Becoming Whole

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Between Sun & Shore was written in February of last year, during a season where I was learning what it felt like to be seen gently instead of weathered. It came from a place of quiet awe—of realizing that sometimes love doesn’t arrive like a storm, but like warmth. Like light finding its way through the cracks you thought would always stay broken.

    This poem is about that in-between space: where grief softens, where healing begins, where you are no longer only the tide or the storm—but something new, something held. It’s about the moment you realize that someone hasn’t come to save you… they’ve come to grow beside you.

    Golden sunrise over a calm shoreline with soft waves and two distant figures standing in quiet closeness.
    Where storms soften and light learns your name.

    Between Sun & Shore
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I once drifted like a wayward tide,
    Lost in the waves, nowhere to hide.
    Storms had carved their name in me,
    Each scar a tale, each wound a sea.

    Then you arrived—a golden ray,
    Like sunrise spilling into the bay.

    Your voice, a hymn the wind would weave,
    Soft as the hum of the monsoon’s reprieve.
    You traced my ruins, stone by stone,
    And turned them into sacred homes.

    Now every ripple speaks your name,
    Each whispered breeze, each dancing flame.

    Like sampaga’s quiet grace,
    You bloom where sorrow left its trace.
    Between Sun and Shore, love grew—
    A bridge of light, leading to you.

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

  • Swear Jar | Angry, Funny, and Honest Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    A little therapy in verse. Some swear words, some rage, and a whole lot of “I need a swear jar for life.” Proceed if you like your poetry honest, angry, and hilarious.

    Illustration of a glass jar overflowing with money, the jar is labelled "Swear Jar".
    The ultimate swear jar—poetry for when words alone aren’t enough.

    Swear Jar
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    A dollar in the jar for every “fuck,”
    And here we go, I’m out of luck.
    Because abusers make my blood boil,
    Manipulative bastards who revel in toil.

    “Shit!” There goes another buck,
    For the pricks who gaslight and leave hearts stuck.
    Twisting minds until they’re broken,
    Leaving scars with lies unspoken.

    The ones who cheat, the lying snakes,
    Who shatter trust for their own sakes.
    “Goddamn,” I shout, as I slam the lid,
    Another dollar for the shit they did.

    To the cowards who bruise with fists or words,
    Making love feel like it’s for the birds.
    “Bastards,” I mutter, reaching for cash,
    For every asshole who leaves hearts in the trash.

    “Fuckers!” Another curse flies free,
    Because love shouldn’t mean captivity.
    “Son of a bitch,” I spit, as the jar grows heavy,
    For the pain they cause, relentless and steady.

    “Shitheads,” I add, slamming down two more,
    For the manipulators who keep settling the score.
    Another “fuck” for the narcissists’ art,
    Tearing apart someone’s whole damn heart.

    “Damn it all,” I shout, the jar now full,
    But they piss me off, those selfish fools.
    By the end of this poem, here’s the count:
    Thirty-four curses—what a fucking amount.

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

  • Sprawling Thoughts – A Poem About Writing, Confession, and Survival

    Rowan Evans

    ✦ Author’s Note ✦

    These words spill like blood and ink. They explore fear, shame, and the weight of confession. Step forward only if you feel steady.

    Your breath, your life, and your heart are sacred. If these words stir difficult feelings, pause, breathe, and reach for light, support, or care. You are never truly alone in the dark.

    Resources if needed:

    US: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – Call or text 988 | https://988lifeline.org

    UK: Samaritans – Call 116 123 | https://www.samaritans.org

    Australia: Lifeline – Call 13 11 14 | https://www.lifeline.org.au

    Canada: Talk Suicide Canada – Call 1-833-456-4566 | https://talksuicide.ca

    Global: Befrienders Worldwide – https://www.befrienders.org

    An open notebook on a dark desk, ink spreading across the page like constellations, lit by a single candle in a shadowed room.
    Where ink becomes confession and scars learn how to shine.

    Sprawling Thoughts
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I put the pen to paper
    like a gun to my head.
    Pull the trigger,
    write the first line—
    watch the ink splatter,
    like brain matter—
    as thoughts sprawl,
    and crawl
    across
    the page.

    This is what
    confession feels like,
    when I write.
    I pour
    my heart out
    on the page.
    The fear and shame,
    I give it shape,
    I give it a name.

    I dance with my demons,
    and map my scars
    like astronomers
    mapping stars.

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