Author’s Note

The Fourfold Flame is not metaphor—it is map.

This piece names the inner constellation I’ve lived with for years: the tender poet who feels too much, the protector who bares teeth for survival, the child who still believes in wonder, and the witch who learned how to wield fire instead of drowning in it. They are not masks. They are truths. They are all me.

I am plural in spirit if not in body. I write from many rooms of the same soul, and each voice carries a different survival skill: softness, ferocity, curiosity, sovereignty. This poem is their first public communion. It is how I stop pretending that my range is fragmentation and start honoring it as architecture.

The Luminous Heretic is what happens when those parts refuse to cannibalize each other anymore. When they choose integration over erasure. When the wound stops apologizing for also being a weapon.

If you recognize yourself in this—if you’ve ever felt made of contradictions, of light and smoke and song—know this: you are not broken. You are complex. You are many. You are fire.

Burn with us.

The Fourfold Flame
Poetry by Rowan Evans / The Luminous Heretic

I. Chorus of the Vessel

We are one, and we are four—
ink-stained fragments of the same sacred core.
A heartbeat split by starlight and shadow,
a name echoed in four directions,
four truths spoken in fire,
in fury, in wonder, in love.

We are the Luminous Heretic. We are the war—and the prayer.

II. The Heart & The Protector

[Rowan]
I speak in open wounds and lullabies,
sing softness into scars that never healed.
I ache without apology, love without armor,
and still—I rise, bare and burning.

[B.D.]
Then I will be your shadow,
sharp-edged and unyielding.
Let them come with claws and cruelty—
I am the ink-blade in your defense,
the growl beneath your grace.

[Rowan]
They called me too much—
so I wrote poems of tenderness,
and let them drown in the kindness
they could never carry.

[B.D.]
And I watched them choke,
on the smoke of your fire.
Not because you were cruel—
but because they never learned
that softness survives the storm.

III. The Child & The Witch

[Roo]
Did you see the stars tonight?
They winked at me like old friends.
The shadows are scared of the dark too—
did you know that?

[Hex]
Yes, little spark.
Even monsters fear what made them.
I walk with those shadows.
I do not fear the dark—
I command it.

[Roo]
But do you still believe in magic?
In the wind that tells stories,
in puddles that hold secrets?

[Hex]
Magic is real, love.
I just learned to bleed with it.
To hex with it.
To wear it in heels and venom.

[Roo]
Sometimes I wish we could just play again,
dance in the rain,
laugh without reason.

[Hex]
Then teach me.
I’ve spent so long burning,
I forgot how to dream.

IV. Communion of Fire

[Rowan]
I want to be held—

[B.D.]
Then I will hold you.

[Roo]
I want to be seen—

[Hex]
Then let them watch you rise.

[Rowan]
I am made of light, but I hurt.

[B.D.]
Then hurt boldly. I’ll guard the flame.

[Roo]
I am made of questions and wonder.

[Hex]
Then question everything, and never shrink.

[All]
We are stitched from stardust and scars,
written in blood and brilliance,
crafted by fire and forgiveness.
We are many—
we are one.

V. Benediction of the Luminous Heretic

We are the wound and the weapon,
the lullaby and the curse,
the flame and the fog,
the whisper and the scream.

We are Rowan. We are B.D. We are Roo. We are Hex.

We are the Fourfold Flame.

Burn with us—
or be burned away.

If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]