sacred rebellion – Poetry by Rowan Evans

Author’s Note

This is no gentle hymn but a sacred scream—an unholy benediction cast in fire and shadow. Here, love is not soft, but a cathedral wrought from ruins, a flame that scorches the cold altar of indifference.

For those who walk the catacombs of their own hearts, battered but unbowed, this is your liturgy—an offering in blood and breath. May these words be your armor and your rebellion, a fierce pulse beneath fractured skin.

— Rowan Evans

Gothic cathedral ruins glowing with fiery embers under a moonlit sky, symbolizing resilience and sacred defiance. — *The sacred flame of resilience flickers within the ruins — a testament to love’s power over apathy.*

Invocation

Hearken, O hearts aflame, to this sacred summoning—
We gather here in twilight’s hush, where shadows kindle light.
This is no prayer for softness, nor for ease’s false embrace,
But a liturgy of fire, a hymn of relentless grace.

In the cathedral of ruin, where broken souls convene,
We offer up our fractured vows—
Love over apathy, a defiant flame in the void.

Love Over Apathy
Poetry by Rowan Evans

Not surrender, but sacrament—
love is the blood I spill in silent worship,
a flame lit in the catacombs of my chest,
unchained from the cold altar of indifference.

This world offers frost,
an unholy shroud that seeks to still the heart,
but I am the wildfire beneath the ashes,
a hymn in the ruins of despair.

Love over apathy—
not a whispered prayer, but a sacred scream,
a tempest rising from charred bones,
a cathedral built from the fragments of broken souls.

To feel is to bleed—
to wear wounds like holy relics,
open and raw beneath the moon’s pale gaze,
unyielding in the face of silent death.

When the darkness chants for silence,
to bury the fire beneath stone and shadow,
I raise my voice—an ancient bell tolling,
a vow scorched into the night’s cold skin.

Love over apathy—
the sacred rebellion,
the bleeding truth,
the vow to burn
when all else turns to dust.

I am the pyre and the prayer,
the shadow that dances in the flicker,
a soul unbowed, unbroken—
the flame that never dies.

Benediction

So rise, wild flame, from ashes deep,
Burn with a fury the cold cannot keep.
In this covenant of scorched devotion,
We are the pyre and the ocean—
Love over apathy, our eternal potion.

Let the darkness roar, let the silence seethe,
We stand unbroken—
The faithful of fire, the fierce beneath.

For those who wander deeper into the shadows and light of my words,
explore the full archive of poems here.
Each piece is a shard of my soul—wild, raw, and unyielding.

There are poems you write to whisper. And there are poems you write to burn down the altar.

This piece was born from every moment I refused to kneel, every scar that became scripture, every time I was told to quiet the rage that kept me alive. It is sacred defiance turned stanza—a reclamation of the darkness we’re told to fear, yet which so often saves us when light abandons us.

To every daughter who chose fire over forgiveness: this is for you.

“Ashes of the Prodigal Daughter”
Poetry by Rowan Evans

If you see the devil,
tell her I’m coming home—
not crawling, not weeping,
but crowned in thorns I chose,
draped in velvet ruin,
with sacred soot beneath my nails.

The sky was never my sanctuary.
Heaven asked for silence,
for purity I never carried—
just the weight of women like me,
crushed under psalms and porcelain smiles.

I was carved from rebellion,
a daughter of dusk and defiance,
suckled not on milk, but wildfire—
a hymnless thing
that never bent the knee
unless it was to rise again.

Let the angels lock their gates.
I’ve unlearned the need for harps and haloes.
I don’t want paradise.
I want the place where sinners sing,
where scars are scripture
and every scream is a sacred verse.

I was not cast out.
I walked out—
step by blistered step,
each footfall a funeral for the girl
who tried to earn her worth
with rosary apologies.

I want Hell,
because I am realistic.
Because love never saved me—
but rage made me holy.

I’ll burn,
but it won’t break me.
I’ve danced with every flame
that tried to claim me.
Each one bent to kiss my bones.

Ash is my anointing.
Smoke is my veil.
I shed names like old skins
and stitched a gospel from every
“too much” they nailed into my spine.

I was forged in fire,
baptized in blood,
a reluctant oracle
with a martyr’s heart
and a serpent’s tongue.

I warred with saints
and kissed their daughters.
I blessed the liars
and cursed the altars.
And still,
I was never anything less than divine.

So tell the devil:
prepare the feast.
Light the candles with my wrath.
I return not as a sinner,
but as scripture—

The ashes of the prodigal daughter,
risen, radiant,
and finally,
home.

We are taught to see rebellion as sin—but sometimes rebellion is survival. Sometimes refusing to be silent, refusing to be small, refusing to repent for who we are… is the holiest act of all.

In my genre, Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism, we do not deny the darkness. We kneel in it, name it sacred, and rise again—wreathed in smoke, crowned in “too much,” unashamed.

✨ Has rage ever made you holy?
Share your story in the comments below—or tell me: which line lit a fire in you? Let’s keep building this cathedral of defiance, together.

Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: sacred rebellion

Love Over Apathy — A Gothic Liturgy of Resilience and Fire | Poetry by Rowan Evans

Ashes of the Prodigal Daughter – A Neo-Gothic Confessional Manifesto