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Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: trauma poetry

  • Walking Memory Lane Before My Birthday | A Poem About Healing, Loss, and Becoming

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    With my birthday approaching, I found myself walking down memory lane—whether I wanted to or not. Birthdays have a way of doing that. They pull you backward through moments you thought were buried, faces you once trusted, versions of yourself you barely recognize anymore.

    This piece came from that forced reflection: tracing where I started, who I opened my heart to, what broke me, and how I learned to survive by drifting instead of healing. It’s about the memories that arrive uninvited, the lessons learned too late, and the quiet realization that growth isn’t always graceful.

    I’m not writing this from a place of resolution—just awareness. This is me taking inventory of the pieces that built me, the scars that shaped me, and the distance between who I was and who I’m becoming.

    Sometimes looking back isn’t about regret. Sometimes it’s about understanding how you’re still standing.

    Misty cobblestone street at night with glowing street lamps, symbolizing reflection, memory, and emotional healing.
    Walking memory lane—where every light holds a name, and every shadow remembers.

    Memory Lane Has No Exit
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I’ve been trapped inside my mind
    for a while now.
    I was wandering along
    memory lane,
    going over
    everything.

    Street lamps line
    cobblestone streets,
    each one named
    after a time
    or place.

    I feel the mist
    of missed
    opportunities,
    brush across
    my face.
    Reminding me
    of things
    I wish
    I would have said.

    I feel the electro—
    static shock,
    as it climbs
    up my spine.
    Until it touches
    the base of my mind,
    and every memory
    floods back.

    Every loss, every victory faced—
    every blame misplaced,
    baseless claim, just to tear me down.
    Every time I opened up,
    and they vanished—
    Poof! No ghost,
    left me unhaunted.
    Then they taunted,
    what the fuck—

    I told her things
    I never shared,
    she said she cared,
    that she was there.
    Twisted words,
    like a knife in my back—
    used every secret shared
    against me,
    every word, a weapon it became.

    I guess that’s why I faded…
    Drifted… never looking for attachment.
    I put my head in the clouds,
    took to the sky. I’m Peter Pan,
    I never landed.

    Well, I guess I never healed.
    Not truly. Guess I just became,
    a little unruly. Hard headed,
    too stubborn to see.
    I wasn’t healing, not really.

    And just as I pull back,
    from that—
    another memory attacks.
    Flies in
    from out of nowhere,
    hits me in the face
    and suddenly,
    I’m back in that place.

    Nineteen.
    I thought she was a queen,
    with her eyes of green.
    Serene, until I saw the rot underneath.
    Twenty-one.
    I fell for her, or so I thought
    and she said she felt the same.
    And then she called me
    by his name.

    At twenty-four,
    there was more.
    A girl that I adored—
    thought we were
    moving toward
    something.
    We talked a lot,
    so I opened up.
    I thought I was safe,
    but she pulled back,
    and disappeared.

    Two weeks.
    I didn’t hear a peep.
    Then the messages started,
    secrets shared in confidence.
    She told them all,
    and felt no guilt.

    It was from—
    these pieces,
    I was built.

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

  • I Am the Storm That Remembers | A Poem About Memory & Endurance

    Rowan Evans

    Author’s Note

    Some people leave, but their weather stays.
    This poem is not about loss—it is about endurance, memory,
    and the quiet strength it takes to remain standing
    when the storm remembers everything.

    A lone figure standing beneath storm clouds, symbolizing memory, endurance, and emotional survival.
    Some people leave, but their weather stays.

    I Am the Storm That Remembers
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    Everyone comes into our lives for a reason,
    but some are only meant for a season.
    Then the weather changes,
    and they begin to drift.
    It may not hit like an immediate shift,
    it may slowly unfold and fade.

    Yet even as they go,
    their footprints linger,
    like sunlight caught in the corner of a room,
    warm but unreachable.

    For me, memories swirl
    like storm clouds roiling overhead,
    thunder rolling through my chest,
    lightning flashing their faces,
    voices cutting through the wind—
    too sharp to ignore, too loud to forget.

    I try to run.
    I try to close the windows,
    pull the shutters tight.
    But the storm is patient.
    It seeps through cracks,
    slips under doors,
    lingers in the spaces I thought I’d cleared.

    Rain falls in shards,
    drenches my quiet moments,
    washes over laughter I can’t recover,
    drowns the footprints of the ones who left.
    And yet, in the chaos,
    there is a strange kind of clarity:
    the storm remembers,
    and so do I.

    I wish I could let it go,
    to be like them—
    so quick to forget,
    so light in the sun.
    But I am not.
    I am the storm’s echo,
    the residue of seasons past,
    and somehow, I carry their weight
    and my own,
    and I am still here,
    breathing,
    walking,
    storm-beaten but alive.

    If you’re looking for more poetry, you can find it here: [The Library of Ashes]

  • 🩸 Liturgies of Ruin & Flight | Neo-Gothic Confessional Poems by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    Two confessions in ink by Rowan Evans

    “There are moments the abyss feels like home.
    So we return to the edge—not to wish for flight,
    but to see how far we fall.”
    — Rowan Evans

    These two poems were written in different hours of darkness, but they share the same marrow:
    A gospel whispered from the edge of belief.
    A confession to the sky and to the abyss alike.
    One is a prayer wrapped in doubt.
    The other, a quiet litany of almost-leaping.

    They are my sacred offerings to anyone who has ever felt broken but still breathing; to the soft-hearted heretics, the quiet survivors, the ones who keep rising even when they don’t know why.

    A solitary figure in dark clothes stands on the edge of a twilight cliff, with candlelight and distant cathedral ruins, evoking gothic melancholy and reflection.
    Liturgies whispered at the edge: devotion, decay, and the quiet rebellion of staying alive.

    The Gospel of My Decay
    (Liturgia Ruinae)

    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    “Bless me, Father, for I have bled.”
    — Rowan Evans

    I. Invocation

    It takes everything in me
    just to get out of bed lately.
    I hate this—this pain in my lungs,
    this ache in my chest.
    I sit in the dark,
    talking to God, asking why?

    Why me?
    Why do I have to bleed?
    Why do I have to bend,
    why do I have to break?

    Why is this a feeling I can’t shake?
    Don’t I deserve to be okay?
    Don’t I deserve to put a smile on my face?


    II. Confession

    Why
    the
    fuck

    did you make me this way—
    broken, alive but slowly decaying?

    And they question—
    Why don’t you believe?
    So I ask back—
    Why would I believe?

    You say God
    would never leave.
    Is that supposed to be enough?
    Is that what you call divine love?
    ’Cause it feels more like apathy to me,
    and if I could help myself, I would—happily.

    But I
    don’t see
    that happening.


    III. Benediction

    Forgive me, Father,
    for the questions I ask.
    For the softness that splinters,
    for faith that fractures.

    Still, I rise—
    not because I believe,
    but because the dawn drags me forward.

    Amen,
    even when I mean:
    I don’t know if I can.

    And yet, the night had more to confess…

    On the Edge Again
    Poetry by Rowan Evans

    I’m on the edge again,
    Standing on the ledge again—
    Overlooking the cliff, like
    I might just try and fly tonight.
    One step forward before I leap,
    Wings outstretched—
    but I don’t have them.
    So I plummet toward the earth below,
    And as I pray for peace—

    Time
    seems
    to slow.

    I watch closely—
    ground quickly approaching.
    One deep inhale,
    Eyes shut tight—
    Open them up:
    I’m in hell.

    And time,
    it moves
    so slow,
    even as I
    quickly
    approach.

    Eyes open,
    gasp for breath.
    There I am,
    still standing
    on the ledge.

    Fall to knees,
    struggling to breathe.
    Tears spill
    from my eyes
    like ink.
    So I—
    pause, rethink
    how it could have
    all ended in a blink.

    And I’m—
    on the edge again,
    standing on the ledge again.

    If these pieces spoke to your shadows, you might also find resonance in:

    13 Psalms of Falling — another prayer for the broken and the breaking.

    Litany & Tongue — where confession meets devotion.

    Vigil of the Broken Saint — standing holy and fractured at the edge.

    Or visit [About NGCR] to learn more about this movement—and if you feel called, [submit your own confessions] to be featured.

    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