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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: strength

  • Kaio-ken with a Pen & Zenkai (Stronger Now) | Dragon Ball-Inspired Battle Poetry

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    I originally wrote these as two separate pieces, but once I stepped back and read them together, I realized they were having the same conversation.

    Kaio-ken with a Pen is the attack: speed, confidence, exaggerated battle-rap energy, and the idea that my mind can move faster than the people trying to keep up with it. The pen becomes the weapon, and Dragon Ball becomes the language I’m using to describe that creative intensity.

    Then came Zenkai (Stronger Now).

    That one felt like the natural aftermath. In Dragon Ball, a Zenkai is the idea of becoming stronger after surviving a near-death experience. That concept fit perfectly with the way I think about resilience: sometimes you get pushed to the edge, you survive the fight, and you come back with something you didn’t have before.

    So together, these poems became something of a two-part battle sequence:

    I attack with the pen.
    I survive the fight.
    I come back stronger.

    Neither piece is meant as a literal threat toward anyone. They’re me having fun with battle-poetry, Dragon Ball references, ridiculous power scaling, and the sheer joy of seeing how far I can push a metaphor before it explodes.

    Basically: Battle Rowan went Super Saiyan.

    — Rowan Evans

    A poet holding a pen stands surrounded by explosive golden and crimson energy, symbolizing creative power, battle, and becoming stronger after adversity.
    One poem is the attack.

    Kaio-ken with a Pen
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I can go Super Saiyan easy,
    the way Chi Chi teached me—
    taught me, I forgot you see
    I’m the best, yes,
    don’t want to step to this—
    you don’t want to fought me—
    fight me, I mean—bitch bite me,
    you’re not like me.

    My mind is terrifyingly quick—
    thoughts comes, instant transmission—
    from my mind to the page
    in a Final Flash attack—
    Kaio-ken with a pen, is this the end?

    Fin.

    Kaio-ken with a pen, I’m at it again,
    this is my battle to win.
    It’s going take you, a Kamehameha
    and Kaio-ken times ten just to test me—
    but it won’t be enough to best me.

    A poet holding a pen stands surrounded by explosive golden and crimson energy, symbolizing creative power, battle, and becoming stronger after adversity.
    The other is what happens when you survive it.

    Zenkai (Stronger Now)
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I’m Goku after a fight
    and a Senzu bean,
    you know what that means—
    I’ve gotten stronger now,
    you pushed me to the edge—
    took me to the brink,
    but you couldn’t end it—
    you couldn’t finish me.

    So do your little dance,
    put on the Potara—do it—
    put your minds together,
    just know, even two as one—
    you won’t get the job done.
    I won’t borrow strength from no one,
    don’t need no spirit bomb
    to drop bombs—

    No Kamehameha—
    just ha-ha, I’m laughin’ at you.

    Journey into the Hexverse…

    [Don’t Push Me]
    A playful battle-poetry piece about turning insults into punchlines, standing your ground, and refusing to be intimidated. Don’t Push Me mixes swagger, humor, rhyme, and Rowan Evans’ signature self-aware interruptions.

    [B.S.T.F.U.]
    A playful battle-poetry exercise packed with insults, internal rhymes, punchlines, wordplay, and literary swagger. B.S.T.F.U. is Rowan Evans flexing the verbal muscles—not calling out anyone in particular.

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

  • The Vigil of the First Son | Neo-Gothic Confessional Prose by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    ☽ Introduction ☾

    In every myth, there is a shadow cast by a cathedral’s ghost;
    in every son who claims that shadow, a prayer whispered in defiance.
    This is the confessional of a child born of ruin and rebellion—
    sworn not to brokenness, but to the fierce holiness of becoming.
    This is…

    Nighttime illustration of a masked vigilante standing on a cathedral roof, overlooking a cracked yet living city under moonlight; symbolizing hope within ruin.
    A sentinel between shadow and dawn — the First Son’s vigil burns quietly, but it burns still.

    ☽ The Vigil of the First Son ☾
    Prose by Rowan Evans

    I was not born from cathedral shadows—
    I fell from another height, beneath painted canvas and sawdust air,
    where faith meant catching and being caught.

    But the fall came anyway.
    And in the ruin, he found me—
    the Broken Saint, robed in mourning.
    He offered me a name forged from grief,
    and I took it, though my palms still smelled of flight and chalk.

    They call me heir, as if shadow is all I have inherited.
    But gods know, I am more:

    I have bled in these alleys, yes—
    but I have danced on rooftops, too,
    laughter spilling into the bruised dawn,
    a reminder that even vigil can be alive.

    He is the shadow.
    I am the light who learned to love the dark
    without letting it devour me.

    Sometimes guilt creeps in—
    that I can still love where he has walled himself off,
    that I can still smile where he only mourns.

    But hope is rebellion, too—
    a heresy against a city built on scars.

    Tonight, the moon crowns my brow in borrowed silver,
    and Blüdhaven breathes below—cracked, imperfect, alive.

    I watch from these heights:
    a sentinel, a son, still learning.

    I am not him.
    And gods, that is my salvation.

    ☽ Benediction ☾

    May the shadow teach you mercy.
    May your scars be the map to your salvation.
    And though the night will call,
    may your first vigil blaze bright enough to be seen from every dawn.

    🔗 You might also like…

    Every vigil casts its own shadow.
    If The Vigil of the First Son has found a quiet corner in your marrow, you may also wander these chapels of ruin and devotion:

    The Vigil of the Broken Saint — a confession of Gotham’s haunted martyr.
    The Vigil of the Clown Prince — a testament of madness, ruin, and marrow-deep defiance.
    The Vigil of the Twisted Harlequin — scars reborn as rebellion, laughter reclaimed.

    Each is a prayer, a confession, a testament carved in bruise, bone, and breath.
    May you find something of yourself between the shadows and the candlelight.

    If my words speak to you, and you’d like to help keep this flame burning — or if you’d like a custom poem woven just for you (or someone dear) — you can do so here:

    Ko-fi — Poetry by Rowan Evans