Cirque Songstress
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A poem : The unrelenting tether to disconnection and a Gargoyle on my chest.
🕑 Added 2025-08-19 05:28:03 +0000 UTCHello friends, this is a poem i wrote at about 2.30am last night.
Music is not coming easily to me at the moment and I keep seeming to write little poems. Most have been single lines or stanzas. This one is the longest.
I am not even sure if it is anything- but this is my current process and as promised I am sharing it with you here either first or only with you, becasue I am not sure if I will do anything more with this... But it exists now.
I was thinking about how gargoyles were originally built so that the water running off the huge gothic structures would not get water damaged. I am pretty bogged down in a few griefs that seem to be rearing their heads at the same time and I feel like when i am at the bottom of that it feels like there is no run off. The sadness jsut goes back into me. And thats where the gargoyle came from.
Add to that I am using my phone to make every decision for me and it doesnt really help.
And you have a modern grief story.
Anyway. Here is a bunch of words.
A collection of words pertaining to grief in the digital firmament
There is a gargoyle on my chest as I climb into a crisply made bed because chat GPT said a calm space would soothe me.
And as I slip into the bed I made and settle in between too many pillows for any person or collection of people, just as I go to inhale a breath – A Gargoyle flaking dust settles on my chest.
It’s heavy. Dirty. Organic rot collecting in its crevices.
It weighs down so any inhalation feels oppressed, never fully realised. I breathe out.
The familiar glow of my phone beckons me to reconnect to disconnected people with their own statues to erect.
I mindlessly scroll, my eyes tasting every offering, but I am left with nothing to digest.
Still. This Gargoyle on my chest.
I inspect the thing. It has no light, no hum, no algorithm drawing me into it and yet,
We lock eyes.
I see its mouth is open as it towers over me like some ill begotten prize.
The weight is crushing through my breast, my ribs are aching as it indents me.
My exhaling seems to add to its weight, it’s unrelenting when I breath.
Eventually I scream in indignation, anger, fear, begin to cry.
And every tear of mine it eats and regurgitates from its gaping mouth back into my eyes.
I will never run out, as long as the Gargoyle stays to supervise.
The cycle is never ending, and my breaths grow faster. Shorter.
I worry I have indeed,
become depressed
my mother’s daughter.
And then, without a warning sign, decree, or proclamation.
The Gargoyle shrinks into salty water, I am devoid of all sensation.
I check every lit-up app to see if anyone was there.
A witness to this loss of love, or a word of kindness or care.
There isn’t.
Just a ruthless deluge of mindless trivialities.
I’m thankful for them, lest I be left alone with this feeling of unease.
I play a show I’ve seen before, a sad excuse for company.
But better that than be left alone, now the Gargoyle is back to watching me.
Comments
David
For me it was something. Especially the last 2/3. For me anyway I don’t know about anyone else, it would probably work better if the first two stanzas were short lines like the rest of it. The first two stanzas put me off a bit, but as it went on it for me got stronger and stronger. Hope that helps. And good luck with your gargoyle.
