✦ Author’s Note ✦

Some wounds do not heal; they become architecture.
The Cathedral Within is the map of mine.
It is the sacred ruin I carry — where gargoyles remember my laughter,
where ghosts wear the faces of those I loved,
and where even the pews grow teeth when I speak.

This is not a poem about despair.
It is about defiance.
About what it means to cradle darkness without letting it consume your capacity to love.
It is a prayer for those who choose softness anyway —
velvet over iron, kiss over curse —
and win, simply by refusing to grow cold.

✦ Invocation ✦

There is a cathedral rotting in my mind—
its steeple split by lightning,
its bells tolling madness
in a language only I understand.

The walls bleed scripture in reverse.
The air stinks of burnt prayer and mildew.
Gargoyles laugh with broken jaws,
their eyes brimming with everything I’ve buried.

✦ The Procession ✦

Demons waltz in blood-soaked gowns,
twirling through the nave with glee—
my failures their favorite hymn,
my shame the rhythm beneath their feet.

Ghosts hang from the rafters like forgotten chandeliers,
dripping memories onto cracked marble.
Each one wears a face I loved,
each one left me hollow.

The altar is an autopsy table.
They dissect my past there nightly—
the knife a whisper, the blade my own voice
asking why I wasn’t enough.

✦ The Vigil ✦

I lived a decade as a wraith—
not alive, not dead,
just echo.
A loop of regret rerun in shadows,
a scream too hoarse to haunt.

I’ve stitched myself from sinew and smoke,
patched the holes with confessions
no one stayed long enough to hear.
Even the pews grow teeth when I speak.

These bones?
They rattle with rot,
splinter under silence,
but still I rise—
a marionette of will, strung together
by threads of stubborn grace.

✦ The Benediction ✦

This softness—they call it weakness, but—
softness is my rebellion.
It is velvet over iron,
a lullaby sung to devils,
a kiss placed gently
on the mouth of the void.

I do not know why I try.
Only that I do.
That something inside me refuses
to go quietly into apathy.

So if you saw the dark I cradle—
the feral, starving chaos I contain—
you’d understand:
choosing love is not a gentle thing.
It is a war.

And every time I smile
instead of scream,
I win.

“Even in the rot, there is light. Even in the silence, there is song. Keep choosing love, and you’ve already won.” — Rowan Evans

Read Next (Suggestions)

[You’re Not Alone] — A Poem for Grief, Memory, and Eternal Love
[Always With You] — A Poetic Promise of Hope & Support
[The Gospel According to the Girl in the Graveyard Dress]
[The Hopeless Romantic Wears Armor]
[Luminescence & Shadow] — A Forbidden Litany

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

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