Author’s Note

This piece is a meditation on resilience, self-reclamation, and the sanctity of imperfection. I wrote it as a sermon for anyone who has ever felt broken, misfit, or misaligned with the world’s expectations. It’s a reminder that divinity exists in survival, in truth-telling, and in the courage to rebuild oneself repeatedly. For the fractured souls out there: this one’s for you.

— Rowan Evans

Sermon for the Fractured
Sermon by Rowan Evans

Every poem I write
is a sermon for the fractured soul.
Saint with a pen,
heathen in the mind.
I’m a preacher’s child
gone wild—
welcome to my church,
it’s a service for the misfits.

I crowned myself a deity.
My divinity
lives somewhere between
G-O-D and Lucifer.
I’m a morningstar, lightbringer.
Or a shadow
walking through a holy world.

Your holy book
banned my name.
Heaven doesn’t want me,
Hell doesn’t either.
So I made
Purgatory my kingdom.

You don’t have to praise me,
you don’t have to worship.
I don’t need blind faith—
for the miracles I create.
You don’t have to suffer
to prove a thing—
your breath is devotion enough.

You don’t have to
sell me your soul.
I will bless you,
while you remain whole.

I am not a deity without flaw—
I’ve been cracked, fractured,
put back together
by my own hands.
I’ve rebuilt myself,
time and time again.
So I don’t ask for perfection,
I ask for confession,
truth and witness.

You can find more of my gospel in the Library of Ashes. [The Library of Ashes]