Rowan Briar

This is my poetry blog.

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Karma

Rowan Briar

Oct ‘25

Karma is a bitch and it’s name is Me

I am the one that you so desperately seek

With the way that you move and the things that you speak

I am not shy but I am for the weak

The weak of intuition, the doubtful, the snakes

The ones who clearly do not have what it takes

To push past their ego, the one who self hate

The one who ignore all their internal brakes

I am storm, unlike any other

I will send you home crying to your mother

The ego that you carry is my job to smother

I will leave you feeling alone, like you’re without another

The only way you can escape my wrath

Is to look inside yourself to find a better path

It’s okay to know there are things that you lack

But if you don’t make those changes, I’ll know when to attack

I’ll get you at your lowest when you’ve hit rock bottom

You’ll feel like you’ve been left by the world to be forgotten

You’ll fall into darkness your season of autumn

And the harvest you reap is all gone and rotten

Karma is a bitch and now that you found me

Your reckoning has come and from my grasp you shall not flea

For I am here now so get on your knees

And know that your begging will never give you any mercy

[scorchinghotpan]

Prompt: Write the Shadow

Circles

Rowan Briar

Aug ‘25

Round and round we spin together

Wildly on the carousel on a darkened cloudy evening

Hearts beating too quickly to feel and the air blowing at our faces like its trying to kill us

I tighten the coil of your music box because I love to watch the ballerina spin

We twirl and twirl and twirl and twirl

Dancing the dance, swing around to the beat

The bathtub is full

I pull the cork

We fall down the open drain

It is an endless cycle

Circling vultures

A hurricane

Can you break free?

[scorchinghotpan]

Week days

Rowan Briar

Jul ‘25

I dream of Sunshine Sundays, when the sunset kisses my cheeks.

I dread Melancholic Mondays, when I wish for the end of the week.

I dare a Terrible Tuesday to test my patience and will.

I dodge a Washed out Wednesday and pull myself over the hill.

I don’t care about Thursdays because the week is almost done.

I dance on Freak out Friday because it’s time for lots of fun.

And the day I long for most, when I am not on call.

Is the glorious Saturday when I don’t have to be anything at all.

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Ignite

Rowan Briar

Jul ‘25

I do not wish to run.

I wish to fly.

Ignite myself off into space so that I do not have to participate in the present that the past created for their future.

But the past forgot that their future is our present.

So They shaped the world for them, not for us.

They put people into power who were greedy.

They would step on anyone for an extra dime.

They chose to scheme, lie, steal from everyone else so They could have lives so comfortable that they could do literally anything and nothing.

I do not wish to watch.

I dare to do.

Ignite the past so that from the ash we may be reborn.

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Prompt: Unraveling

Control

Rowan Briar

Jul ‘25

As of late, I feel as though I have lost the plot.

I, a ball of yarn, and life, the proverbial kitten playing without a care.

Circumstance pulls the loose thread on the sweater of my mind, unraveling my thoughts into uncomfortable feelings.

Feelings that taste of sour milk.

They always do with problems like this.

Cause they are out of my control.

So I try to find what I can control.

I lock myself away in a tower to keep my madness from spiraling out cause I have no one left to turn to but myself.

I am alone.

I am unwinding.

And I am out of control.

[scorchinghotpan]

TW: implied cannibalism, 18+

Consume

Rowan Briar

Jul ‘25

In the modern understanding everything is meant to be consumed.

Consumption is the great expression of obsession.

To consume is to feel joy.

To consume is to feel love.

To consume is to feel.

If you love me, you must consume me.

My body, your bread.

My blood, your wine.

Drink in my essence.

Eat me.

I wrap myself in a neat bow so that you may unwrap my internalized objectification.

You toss the wrapper on the floor and I spread myself for you.

You leave the table, plate half eaten.

Ungrateful.

I made all of this for you and you didn’t even finish.

Next time, I’ll be sure to serve you a smaller portion.

Or maybe nothing at all.

[scorchinghotpan]

Time

Rowan Briar

Jul ‘24

I feel like there isn’t enough time in the day anymore

When I was a child everyday felt so long

Now, time moves stereotypically like sand

I can never seem to grab a hold of it

And I’m not even 30 yet

I’m trying to reconcile with myself

Tell myself, “It’s ok, you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

It’s hard to keep going when rejection and failure make you feel incompetent

And the passage of time definitely doesn’t help

I want to do more

Be more

I want to help people

But I still feel like a child

Like I don’t know anything

Because I don’t

I don’t even know what I’m searching for

I’m just stuck searching

And time moves to quickly for me to search

There’s always to much to do just to maintain

Just to feel like I’m standing up

When will my time come to find my truth?

I want to have some kind of confidence in myself and what I do

I’m trying to make the best of the world we live in but I don’t feel like I can

[scorchinghotpan]

Friday Afternoon

Rowan Briar

Jul ‘25

2 hours travel seems pretty long to most, but for a Friday Afternoon it could mean something new.

Something worthwhile.

A fresh start.

When I find my destination Anxiety is there holding hands with Hope, making for an oddly charming couple.

We all take sips of green tea together at a table in the shade with a cool breeze blowing.

It’s a beautiful day for some sunshine.

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Prompt: VOID

Absent

Rowan Briar

Jun ‘25

Silent love is deep

Unknown to the untrained eye

But when you know what to look for, you can see it in the small things

Like finding something you planned to fix when you had the time being done one day without warning or mention

Bold love is grand

A tidal wave of exclamation

It always seems to big to most, but the ones who need it want the world to know their love

Like when someone gets down on you knee to propose to their partner in front of an entire crowd of people

Many types of love exist, and yours was absent

Absent love is a confusing love because you never know if it’s true

A empty space waiting to be occupied

You call into question its sincerity and in the end you’re left feeling guilty for ever even asking

Like the love of my mother

[scorchinghotpan]

Lost Love

Rowan Briar

Jun ‘25

There are days when I find myself in a wooded landscape of thought, plucking memories from trees.

There were days I’d pass the one of our love and I’d be reminded of the bittersweet taste of its fruit.

I had gotten lost looking for it.

I’d go out to search and give up, over and over.

I finally found it by mistake and when I set my gaze to it, I grew deeply saddened.

Instead of shady, fluttering leaves, I found twisted branches.

Rotting and knotty.

No fruit hanging low.

A hollow trunk.

A skeleton of its former glory.

Lost to the insects and mycelium.

Lost of the elements.

Lost to time.

But through that loss comes renewal.

An opportunity for new love to prosper.

Whatever love may prosper, I hope to share it.

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Prompt: HEATWAVE

Childhood

Rowan Briar

Jun ‘25

Dry

Arid

Hard wind blowing

The taste of the dessert suck to my gums

Hot cloudy evenings that were all thunder and no rain

A sunburned nostalgia I could never forget

[scorchinghotpan]

Peregrin

By Rowan Briar

April ‘25

Have you ever watched someone you love commit an act of self harm?

I have.

It feels like someone stuck 10 iron fire pokers into a freshly churned flame, let them sit until they glow hot, and then ripped them out only to make a bullseye of your sternum.

The anger sieges my heart, turns my blood to magma.

Is it the blatant selfishness of the act that makes me the most upset?

No.

No, it is the abhorrence I have for the Creatures who thought they had the ownership of the person I call my best friend.

The monsters of Gods fellowship who picked flesh from bone from their sacrificial lamb.

With no tender sinew left now, they suck on the scattered frame, hoping for a taste of marrow, but there is nothing left.

As the abominations stand over the pile of hollowed calcium, proud of their work, the tattered skull omits a single word.

“Abuse”

The fellowship waves their arms around in fitted panic.

“ It was not I.”

“These allegations are false.”

“I love you so much, how could I hurt you like that.”

After they make their useless thoughts heard to nothing, they take an aside to strategize a legal plan in the case that the literal pile of fucking bones decides to take any action on its allegation.

While they chatter and skeem, I run to the ragged pile and throw the remains into a bag hanging from my waistband.

Cautiously cradled, they gently shift around on the way to somewhere safe.

Somewhere they can be laid to properly rest.

I know the journey and it is a hard path. To weather the emotion of what could have been seeds a deep pain.

But from that seed, pain sprouts a seedling.

One of strength, bravery, and compassion.

Seedling will become sapling as we travel onward and eventually we will reach our destination.

A grove made up of trees like the one we carry where there is a spot already prepared for our sapling.

There is where these bones will rest. Perfectly content, nested in the roots.

But for now, we travel knowing we will find our peace.

[scorchinghotpan]

A quiet bus ride

By Rowan Briar

Dec ‘24

Drizzly Saturday morning

Purple gray storm clouds layering the sky

Heavy whirring becomes white noise behind the music in my headphones

Next stop

The seating changed

Ever changing graffiti sprawled across impossible to reach places on highway dams

This one reminds be of bus rides to camp

Next stop

It’s raining now

Google maps almost take us in the opposite direction

This one takes us to the light rail

Next stop

Westlake to U District

There’s a farmers market there

It’s on university way and the restaurants are great

Next stop

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Iambic Pentameter

By Rowan Briar

Dec ‘24

I never knew that I would come to find

a feeling resting deep within my soul.

It bubbled up a little, now and then.

It warmed my heart and made me feel so whole.

This feeling grew till it was standing tall,

like the strongest oak I’d ever seen.

To compare myself to its large size,

Made me seem like I was so small and weak.

But then, I looked upon it once again.

And came to the conclusion that if I

Had not existed then this feeling would

Have never gotten to its massive size.

This feeling I would give my turtledove.

The feeling that I speak about is love.

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Suffer

By Rowan Briar

Dec ‘24

If your words are meant to be a dagger,

let mine be needles.

Prickling just enough to get under your skin.

If they’re meant to be arsenic,

Let mine be poison ivy.

A quick brush that causes instantaneous hives.

Scratch at the irritation left by my passive remark.

Break the skin after your instinctual reach to find some reprieve from the stinging pain.

Pick at the scabs, reopen the wounds, let them fester.

If your words are meant to kill,

Let mine be torture.

For I,

I wish to see you suffer.

[scorchinghotpan]

Birthday

By Rowan Briar

Dec‘24

5 days away from 27.

My Saturn return is coming up.

I’ve got 4 months to get my shit together.

SZA says life’s better up there.

I’m scared of the lessons I’ll learn.

[scorchinghotpan]

Free

By Rowan Briar

Dec ‘24

Poems are brushstrokes.

Small and deliberate.

Broad and long.

Each word builds a scene.

Carving an image of humanity and its facets.

Expression distilled down to barest essentials.

Warming a heart.

Resting a soul.

Easing a mind.

Leaving an aftertaste of vulnerability.

Pure.

Free.