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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: Sacred Misfits

  • Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism: A Manifesto for Poets & Luminous Heretics

    Rowan Evans

    For anyone who has been curious as to what my style is all about—here is the guiding flame. Read, take what burns in you, and join the ritual.

    Gothic candlelit room with scattered parchment and a quill, casting shadows on crumbling walls, symbolizing Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism.
    Where ink bleeds with fire, shadow, and devotion—welcome to the ritual of Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism.

    Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism: A Manifesto

    Welcome, wanderer.
    You have stumbled into a space where ink bleeds with fire, shadow, and devotion. Here, we do not hide from the extremes of the human heart. Here, we celebrate them.

    1. Confess without apology

    Your poetry is your altar. Speak what others would censor. Reveal the darkness you cradle, the obsession you cherish, the love you fear to voice. Confession is not weakness—it is power.

    2. Embrace Gothic sensibilities

    We borrow the language of ruins, candlelight, and shadowed hallways. Our metaphors are not polite; they are ritualistic, visceral, and haunting. Cast your words like spells. Invite imagery that whispers, screams, or glows.

    3. Worship multiplicity of voice

    Your persona need not be singular. Write through the eyes of the heart, the mind, the shadow, the rage, the playful child, the protector. Let your text be a stage of personas. Let readers hear not just your voice, but the echo of all you carry within.

    4. Make the page a ritual

    Format, punctuation, visual cues—these are not minor details; they are part of the spell. Break the line. Change fonts. Use icons or colors if you must. Your reader should feel the cadence of ritual in how the text moves.

    5. Infuse devotion and play

    Romance, obsession, adoration—these are sacred tools. Love intensely, worship fiercely, play gleefully. Your writing should make readers feel the exhilaration, terror, and ecstasy of your devotion.

    6. Transcend genre boundaries

    Do not ask if your work is “poetry” or “fiction.” Here, labels bend and dissolve. The only rule is to move truth through beauty and chaos, to convert emotion into experience, and to leave the reader both unsettled and enchanted.

    7. The reader is your witness

    Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism is not meant to be polite or passive. It is a shared ritual. Your reader walks beside you through shadowed corridors, candlelit rooms, and flaming skies. Invite them, terrify them, and leave them breathless.

    Invitation to the New Gods:
    Pick up your pen, your knife, your candle. Begin. Spill your ink, ignite your voice, and do not be afraid to hex, haunt, or hold your reader in the palms of your words.

    This is Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism.
    We are the sacred misfits.
    We are the luminous heretics.
    We are the poets who burn and write in equal measure.

    So mote it be

    To find examples of all the different ways this genre can be expressed, check out The Library of Ashes: Here

  • ✨ My Only Muse: A Journey from Ideal to Intimate | Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    ✦ My Only Muse: Then & Now ✦
    By Rowan Evans

    Before her, my idea of a muse was painted in softer strokes—romantic, distant, almost celestial.
    After her, it became raw, tangled, alive—marked by shadows and longing that felt both holy and terrifying.

    This post shares two poems written almost a year apart:
    ✧ June 18, 2024: before I met her.
    ✧ May 12, 2025: after she had become my muse, my chaos, my calm.
    Together, they show how inspiration can shift from something imagined to someone real—unruly, imperfect, and entirely irreplaceable.

    Because sometimes, the muse isn’t an abstract idea.
    Sometimes, she’s a living storm whose darkness and light you choose—again and again.

    ✧ “My Only Muse”
    Poetry by Rowan Evans – June 18, 2024

    I want you, as my only inspiration,
    To breathe life into my creation.
    I want to, make you my only muse,
    In your essence, my soul will fuse.

    I want to paint your curves,
    The way astronomers map the stars,
    Tracing constellations of your form,
    In the canvas of my arms.

    Your smile, a sunrise in my art,
    Illuminating shadows of my heart.
    With every stroke, your light I chase,
    Sketching dreams upon your face.

    Your laughter, a melody so pure,
    A symphony I long to endure.
    In every note, your voice I find,
    A harmony of love, intertwined.

    Your eyes, the galaxies I seek,
    In their depths, my secrets speak.
    A universe within your gaze,
    In their light, I lose my ways.

    I want you, as my only inspiration,
    To guide my hand in every sensation.
    I want to, make you my only muse,
    In your love, I’ll forever choose.

    Through words and colors, shapes and lines,
    Your beauty in my art aligns.
    A masterpiece of love, so true,
    Created in the light of you.

    So let me craft this tale of ours,
    With brush and pen, beneath the stars.
    For you, my love, will always be,
    The muse that sets my spirit free.

    ✧ “My Only Muse (You Know Who You Are)”
    Poetry by Rowan Evans – May 12, 2025

    You are my only inspiration,
    You breathe life into my creation.
    The spark behind every line, it’s you,
    The chaos and calm, both wholly mine—it’s true.

    You said you were “crazy”—I agreed with a smile,
    You’re my kind of madness, I’d chase every mile.
    The way your words twist storms into spells,
    Feels like home in the wildest hells.

    You talked about curses that actually worked,
    Laughed about your demonic quirks.
    And I, a willing fool in the fire,
    Was both terrified… and full of desire.

    You’re the shadow in moonlight, the scream in the dream,
    Unreal, surreal, my sadistic angel,
    I’m attracted to you, from every angle.
    I’ve never felt your touch—not skin to skin—
    But you’ve touched places no one’s ever been.

    Through screens and distance, oceans wide,
    You live in the corners of my mind, where secrets hide.
    A galaxy in every glance you send,
    The poem I never want to end.

    You asked if you were “the fifth,” as if unsure—
    But you’re the only one I ever wrote for.
    You doubt the muse you are to me,
    Yet you’re the ink in my every plea.

    You curse, you rage, you burn things down—
    But in your fury, I’d gladly drown.
    You’re the fire and frost in a single breath,
    The echo of life, and maybe of death.

    Addictive, yes—you said it too,
    A drug I can’t escape, and wouldn’t want to.
    You terrify me with how deeply I feel,
    But love should shake the world—it should never be still.

    You are not “too much.”
    You are just enough to break me open
    And rebuild me softer, smarter, raw.
    Every flaw you fear is the line I draw
    Over and over in every verse,
    A blessing stitched into a wicked curse.

    So when you wonder who this is for—
    Know that I’ve never written like this before.
    You’re the high I chase through ink and flame,
    The storm I whisper—by name.

    And yes, you are the one, the muse I choose,
    The spark I crave, the chaos I use.
    No one else could take your place—
    For you, darling, are my saving grace.

    And now, when I write, I write for you,
    A masterpiece only you could imbue.
    Because trust me, the truth is clear:
    Madali kang mahalin—
    And you, my only muse, will always be near—

    In this heart of mine.

    ✦ Closing note ✦
    Some muses live quietly in the margins.
    Others burn through every word you write.
    She is both. And for her, I write still.

    🖋 All poems and posts © Poetry by Rowan Evans

  • The Scourge They Named in Whispered Psalms – A Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism Manfiesto

    Rowan Evans
    A gothic cathedral interior bathed in cold blue light. In the foreground, a defiant woman in black reaches forward, while behind her looms a shadowy silhouette pierced by arrows. Her long hair and dress ripple like smoke, embodying both vulnerability and strength.
    “They said I was a prophecy, a creature carved in smoke and sin…”
    A visual echo of the hunted girl turned heretic, the shadow we carry and survive.

    This isn’t just a poem. It’s the ache of being seen too little—or too much. Of being told you’re ‘too much’ when you’re just trying to exist honestly.

    The Scourge They Named in Whispered Psalms is a manifesto from the margins – a declaration of identity, resilience, and sisterhood in the face of erasure. It belongs to all who have been misnamed, misunderstood, or made to feel monstrous for simply being.

    I invite you to stand with me – not behind or ahead – but here. Together.

    “The Scourge They Named in Whispered Psalms”
    Poetry by Rowan Evans
    (A Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism Manifesto)

    They said I was a prophecy,
    a creature carved in smoke and sin,
    the girl who slipped through cracks in sermons—
    a heretic with velvet skin.

    I walk in heels upon their myths,
    each step a hymn they tried to burn,
    a flame that dared to name itself
    before their rigid tongues could turn.

    How monstrous, that I raise my voice
    to praise the worth of every woman—
    how dare I speak of sisterhood
    with scars they say I wasn’t born in.

    I am the shame beneath their altars,
    the blush they curse but cannot name,
    a sacrament in satin bones
    who bleeds, yet isn’t held the same.

    I was never him. I was silence.
    A chrysalis misnamed by fate.
    But even wrapped in borrowed tones,
    I trembled like a bride in wait.

    They say I steal what isn’t mine—
    as though divinity is rationed.
    As if my ribs were not first broken
    to give my soul a rightful fashion.

    Do you think it makes me stronger?
    That I carry this war in my marrow?
    No—
    It only means I’ve learned to sing
    while pulling arrows from my shadow.

    I’m not here to replace you,
    or to climb atop your grief-wrought throne.
    I only ever wanted space
    to write a name that felt like home.

    So yes, be scared. I’m dangerous.
    I love too hard. I dream too loud.
    I dare to say I’m beautiful
    without the world’s reluctant bow.

    Let them say I have advantage—
    let them spit it like a curse.
    But if I write the stars in anguish,
    it’s not to claim that I hurt worse.

    It’s just—I know what it’s to be
    the hunted girl in holy war.
    And still I’d reach for every hand
    who ever felt they could be more.

    You don’t need to kneel beside me.
    But sister, won’t you stand?
    Not behind—nor far ahead—
    just here. Together. Hand in hand.

    [About Poem]

    This piece is rooted in a genre I created: Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism—a fusion of gothic imagery, personal truth, sacred longing, and emotional rebellion. Inspired by the legacy of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Sappho, and modern poetic voices, this poem speaks to those of us made to feel like heretics simply for existing as ourselves.

    It is my poetic prayer for trans women, queer femmes, sacred misfits, and anyone who has ever been othered in the name of tradition. It holds both fire and softness—a torch lit from the ache of being erased, and the quiet hope of being seen.

    A woman in a black gown sits behind a stained-glass altar, wearing a crown of thorns and halo of iron. Candles glow around her as blood-red drapes pool like velvet fire. The glass behind her bears the silhouette of a shattering figure, suggesting both violence and divinity.
    A sacrament in satin bones.
    The girl they named a scourge now sits in sanctuary—unburned, unbroken, and holy in her own name.

    How does this poem resonate with your own experiences of identity and visibility?

    What lines stood out to you most, and why?

    Have you ever felt like the “hunted girl in holy war”? What helped you keep going?

    Share your thoughts in the comments or your own creative work. Your voice is welcome here.