I’m less interested in what people show the world than in what they carry when no one is asking.
I’ve learned that silence has weight.
Silence has its own weight.
How You Take Your Silence Poetry by Rowan Evans
I want to go beneath the surface— to see the substance, where true beauty lives.
Don’t tell me how you take your coffee: tell me how you take your silence.
I want to see the things you’ve been taught to hide: the tremor beneath your laughter, the cracks in the walls where light leaks through, the fingerprints of your fears pressed into the corners of your mind.
The corners where your smile falters, the shadows that dance behind your eyes, the way your hands betray the calm you wear like armor.
I want to trace the maps of the roads you walked alone, I want to know the weight of your quiet—
I want to see how it shaped you, how it made you the whole of you.
Author’s Note
Silence has its own language. I’m still learning how to listen.
For those who cry quietly in bathroom stalls. For those who apologize when they should have screamed. For those whose softness was mistaken for surrender— This gospel is yours. Your ache is sacred. Your tenderness is a war cry with petals in its mouth.
“Thirteen Psalms for the Tender-Hearted” Poetry by Rowan Evans
✦ These psalms are dedicated to ✦
✦ The boys who cry in secret. ✦ The girls who never stopped feeling. ✦ The queers, the witches, the warriors who bleed beauty into the dark.
This gospel is yours. Welcome home.
✦ Psalm I ✦ For the Ones Who Still Bloom
i am not a weapon. i am the wound that chose to bloom.
✦ Psalm II ✦ For the Boys Who Were Told to Be Brave
they taught him fists, but he offered flowers. they called him weak— but he never let the fire turn him cruel.
✦ Psalm III ✦ For the Girl Who Cries Easily
let them call it weakness— this ache i carry like a crown. i know it as worship.
✦ Psalm IV ✦ For the Boy With a Gentle Voice
he never raised his voice. so they never heard the thunder that lived in his quiet.
✦ Psalm V ✦ For the Ones Who Love Without Armor
my softness is not silence. it is thunder, made quiet for the sake of gentler ears.
✦ Psalm VI ✦ For the Survivors Who Still Say “I Love You”
the fire touched me too. but i still say “i love you” like a lullaby, not a warning.
✦ Psalm VII ✦ For the Ones Who Stayed Kind
some nights, i only survive by reading the poems i haven’t written yet.
✦ Psalm VIII ✦ For the Misnamed and Misunderstood
she told me i was too much. so i became everything.
✦ Psalm IX ✦ For the Sacred Masculine
he is not hard. he is holy. and his softness is scripture.
✦ Psalm X ✦ For the One Who Chose Love Again
they broke me and i still built a home with my hands full of splinters.
✦ Psalm XI ✦ For the Queer Ones Who Survived
we loved wrong, they said. but we loved true— and we survived without bitterness.
✦ Psalm XII ✦ For the Child Who Lives in You
you are not too sensitive. you are just fluent in the language of feeling. that is not a flaw— it’s your first tongue.
✦ Psalm XIII ✦ For You, Tender-Hearted One
your softness is not an accident. it is the last sacred thing they cannot take.
✦ Final Benediction ✦
May your softness remain. Even when it’s heavy. Even when it’s mocked. Even when the world calls it a wound.
May you remember: You are not weak. You are woven from wonder. You are made of fire and mercy and ink. And you are still—still—holy.
Which psalm resonated with you most? Leave your blessing below.
Poetry by Rowan Evans 