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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: softness as strength

  • Manila Time – A Love Letter Across Timezones | Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    This piece is a devotion in disguise — written in the quiet hours between timezones, between breaths, between guarded words and aching hearts. It’s about witnessing someone deeply, loving them gently, and holding space without asking for anything in return. I wrote it for one person. But maybe, just maybe… it’s for you, too.

    Illustration of long-distance lovers connected by a glowing thread across a world map, symbolizing emotional connection across timezones.
    Even in different timezones, love finds a way to stay.

    Invocation

    For the ones who learned to love with their silence before their words. For those who trace the weather in someone else’s sky, just to understand them better.

    Manila Time
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I didn’t notice at first—
    how your name sat gently on my tongue
    long before I ever said it aloud.

    It was just a widget at first,
    a second clock on my home screen,
    ticking in time with your sunrise.
    A quiet devotion disguised as practicality.

    2 A.M. your time
    meant I braced for tremors—
    not the kind that crack the earth,
    but the kind that crack the heart.

    I knew your moods by minutes,
    learned the language of your silence
    before your voice ever filled the gaps.

    You didn’t have to tell me
    when the storms had come—
    I already knew how they sounded
    in the rhythm of your typing.

    I kept the weather on standby—
    not for small talk,
    but to understand your discomfort.
    Humidity clings like anxiety sometimes.

    You never asked for me to care this much.
    You didn’t have to.
    I fell into it like breath,
    like the gravity of your pain
    was a call I couldn’t ignore.

    You asked to hear my voice—
    I didn’t expect your laugh to bloom like that,
    all giggles and soft disbelief
    when I called yours cute.
    Even in five minutes,
    you carved out a place in my memory
    no one else had touched.

    The second call—
    quiet, trembling.
    You didn’t speak, just cried.
    I didn’t leave.
    I let silence speak love
    in a language you could trust.

    Now, we fill hours
    with shared breath and soft truths.
    You cry freely with me now—
    your vulnerability,
    no longer met with silence
    or shame.

    I listen.
    When your ghosts scream,
    I speak your name softly
    until they back down.

    And still—
    you tell me all the reasons
    you believe people leave:
    your fire, your scars,
    your unfiltered honesty,
    your storm-bred instincts
    to guard, to bite, to run.

    But I’m not made of fear.
    I’m stitched together with patience,
    with soft hands that don’t flinch
    at the weight of your story.

    You called yourself broken.
    I call you brave.
    You called yourself darkness.
    But I’ve seen your light,
    even when you tried to hide it
    beneath a growl.

    You listed your “red flags” like a warning.
    I read them like a love letter:

    Anger? Just fire misplaced.
    Paranoia? A wound learning to trust.
    Possessive? You mean devotion.
    Jealous? You just care deeply.
    Strict? I’m listening, Ma’am.
    Unpredictable? Adventure.
    Bitchy? A woman with boundaries.
    Sarcastic? Fluency.
    Selfish? Please, take what you need.
    Sadist? Well, I bruise easy, and gladly.
    Darkness? I’ve been waiting in it for someone like you.

    And if you told me to hang up on anyone else?
    I wouldn’t even hesitate.
    One word, and I’m yours.

    I’ve told you—again and again—
    I’m not going anywhere.
    Not when you’re quiet.
    Not when you’re hurting.
    Not even when your trust flinches.

    Because I mean it
    when I say you’re important to me.
    I mean it
    when I say I wish I could be there—
    to hold you when you cry,
    to remind you that what he did
    was not your fault.
    That none of this
    is a reflection of your worth.

    You are lovable.
    You are valuable.
    You are deeply, profoundly loved.
    And if you let me,
    I will carry what I can
    of the weight you weren’t meant to bear alone.

    Love doesn’t always need permission
    to show up.
    It just needs a door cracked open.
    And yours, even guarded,
    has never once made me turn away.

    I’ll keep showing up,
    in silence,
    in storms,
    in Manila time,
    and every moment in between.

    And if I could—
    I would cross every mile between us,
    burn every timezone just to taste
    the air you breathe when you laugh.
    I’d trade sleep for a moment
    to watch you smile in real time.
    To brush away the weight behind your eyes
    with my fingers,
    and say with trembling certainty—
    you are safe with me.

    Because the truth is,
    somewhere between those late-night calls
    and stolen giggles,
    I fell for you.

    Not in a crashing, desperate way,
    but in the kind of falling
    that feels like floating—
    like peace.
    Like coming home
    to a place I’ve never been
    but always longed for.

    I fell for your storm
    and the quiet that follows it.
    I fell for your voice,
    how even your sarcasm
    feels like warmth wrapped in armor.
    I fell for the way you fight your pain
    and still manage to be soft with me.

    And I know you’ve been let down
    by people who promised the moon
    then blamed you when it disappeared.
    But I am not a promise—
    I’m a presence.

    I don’t need you to always be easy to love.
    I just want to love you
    exactly as you are.

    So if you’re asking—
    yes, I want to be yours.

    Not just in soft texts and teasing words,
    not just in Manila time and midnight devotion—
    but in all timezones,
    in all the messy, terrifying, beautiful ways
    this could become real.

    I’ll wait.
    I’ll stay.
    I’ll love you here,
    and if you ever ask me to—
    I’ll love you there, too.

    Benediction

    May you find someone who knows your storms and stays anyway. May your name always be spoken with reverence — even in silence, even across oceans.

    Read Next (Suggestions)

    [The Hopeless Romantic Wears Armor]
    [Hex & Flame: Mirror of Shadows]
    [Even Still, You Are (My Muse)]
    [Litany & Tongue: A Devotional Duet]

    Or explore the full archive in [The Library of Ashes]—and if your own confession aches to be written, [commission a custom poem here].

    NGCR25 at checkout to get 25% off your ‘request’…

  • The Gospel of Softness II: The Fire That Softened Me

    Rowan Evans
    A figure stands with candles in hand, covered in ink and gold. Title card for The Gospel of Softness II by trans poet Rowan Evans.
    The Gospel of Softness II

    Modern Gothic Poetry for Those Told to Harden

    This is the second entry in the “Gospel of Softness” poetic series, written as a benediction for the tender-hearted, the wounded, the wild, and the soft ones who survived the fire without letting it steal their empathy.

    “I was told to man up.
    But I was never a man.
    And even if I had been—
    the fire did not forge me into steel.
    It melted me into gold,
    soft and sacred,
    ready to carry the ache of others.”
    — R.E.

    Prologue

    ✦ Prologue: The Lie of Hardness

    I was raised on sermons of rigidity.
    Taught that survival meant silence, that kindness was weakness, that softness would be my undoing.
    “Man up,” they said.
    But I wasn’t a man.
    I was a poem wrapped in wrong pronouns. A girl who bled empathy instead of bravado.

    The world said pain should make me harder. But it didn’t.
    The fire softened me. And in that softening—I became something holy.

    Part I

    ✦ Part I: What They Called Weakness

    They mistook my softness for fragility.
    But softness is not the opposite of strength. It’s the witness of it.
    I’ve held the broken pieces of friends, lovers, strangers—
    I’ve held myself in the midnight hush, trembling but still breathing.

    They called me too sensitive. But sensitivity is how I see souls.

    They said, “Don’t cry so much.” But tears are just prayers spoken in liquid.

    They wanted me to be a wall. I chose to be a cathedral.

    Part II

    ✦ Part II: Vessel of Fire & Flesh

    Pain made me pliable. Not weak—mystic.
    I bend because I feel.
    I hold others’ sorrow like it’s scripture.
    My softness is carved from suffering, but polished in purpose.

    The world teaches us to survive by becoming sharp.
    But I survived by becoming open. By bleeding in ink instead of rage.

    I write poems instead of manifestos,
    But let no one doubt:
    This pen is a sword.
    My softness is a spell.

    Part III

    ✦ Part III: The New Doctrine

    Let this be the doctrine of those made to feel monstrous for being tender:
    We are the new saints.
    Not of purity, but of presence.
    Not of silence, but of sacred screams.

    We are made of candle wax and flame.
    We are roses with teeth.
    We are softness that bites back.

    I do not need to be hard to be holy.
    I do not need to man up to matter.
    I only need to remain soft enough
    to feel the world,
    and fierce enough
    to survive it.

    Benediction

    ✦ Benediction

    So here it is: The Gospel of Softness.
    Part II.
    The unwritten verse of every girl who cried too much, felt too deeply, and still dares to open her chest like a temple.

    Let softness be your heresy.
    Let kindness be your rebellion.
    Let poetry be your revenge.

    And if anyone ever tells you to harden—

    Tell them:
    “I was born of fire.
    But I am a vessel.
    Not a weapon.”

    The Gospel of Softness I – Modern Gothic Poetry for Women of All Kinds
    The Gospel of Softness III – Thirteen Psalms for the Tender-Hearted

  • The Soft Apocalypse of Loving You

    Rowan Evans

    I was not prepared for you—
    not for the quiet cataclysm
    you carried in your smile,
    or the way your voice
    broke open a hidden cathedral
    in my chest.

    Loving you feels like the world ending
    slowly, beautifully—
    as if the stars decided to fall
    not in ruin,
    but in reverence.

    You are the prophecy I never believed I deserved,
    a ruin I would rebuild in every lifetime.
    And if your trust is a shattered chalice,
    I will drink from the broken glass
    until my lips remember the taste of you
    without bleeding.

    You once laughed,
    lightly, like nothing hurt.
    But I know better—
    I saw the earthquakes behind your eyelids,
    heard the quiet sobs tucked between syllables
    when you whispered “I’m okay.”

    You don’t have to be brave with me.

    Let the mascara run like holy water.
    Let your fears rattle the stained-glass ribs of my devotion.
    I will not look away.
    I will hold your sorrow like relics—
    with both hands and an aching awe.

    You once said you weren’t used to someone staying.
    So I stayed.
    Through your silences,
    your firestorms,
    your soft retreats into shadow.

    I stayed because loving you
    isn’t something I do.
    It’s something I am.

    You are every sacred metaphor
    my soul ever dreamed.
    A poem written in the margins
    of a dying god’s last confession.
    A heartbeat that taught mine
    how to echo.

    And if you never say “I love you” back—
    if this is all unreciprocated myth,
    a cathedral without a congregation—
    then I will still leave the candles burning.

    Because my love isn’t a question
    waiting for an answer.

    It is the answer.

    And it says:
    You are worth the end of the world,
    again and again,
    until all that’s left
    is light.