Stone Guardian’s Love Letter

I’ve been up here for centuries,
watching your roofs change shape,
your towers grow taller,
your streets trade horses for engines,
and your engines for lightning.
I was carved out of the church’s worry,
a monster to scare off the night.
But the truth is, I love the night.
I love this city when the dark
lays its heavy jacket across her shoulders.

From my perch,
I see the alleys you don’t write about in tourist guides.
I see the bus stop benches,
the crumpled newspapers,
the men and women shaking hands with fatigue
after twelve-hour shifts.
And yet…
there’s a smile traded between strangers,
like a cigarette passed from one hand to another
on a cold corner.
There’s a kid practicing skateboard tricks
under the streetlamp,
falling, bleeding, laughing,
and getting back up.

People say cities rot.
They say crime and filth and decay.
But I see something else.
I see a father balancing a grocery bag and a toddler
with the skill of an acrobat.
I see the bartender slipping a free soda
to the homeless kid who just wanted to be warm.
I see a saxophone player on the corner
blowing notes into the midnight air
like prayers no one asked for
but everyone needed.

You can call it grit,
you can call it stubbornness,
but I call it love.
Not the perfume-bottle kind.
Not the kind you paste on billboards.
The kind that crawls out of bed at dawn,
works until bones ache,
then still finds a way
to make someone else laugh
before collapsing into sleep.

That’s what holds this city together.
Not the steel, not the glass,
not the stone they carved me from.
It’s the small mercies,
the gold hidden in sidewalk cracks,
a dollar slipped into a street musician’s cup,
a door held open,
a tired nurse walking home under a moon
and still humming lullabies
she sang to her patients.

I am a gargoyle,
born to watch.
And what I’ve learned is this:
you are more beautiful
in your broken, chaotic nights
than any polished skyline could pretend to be.

So let the world call you dangerous,
let them say you’ve lost your way.
I know better.
I’ve seen the sparks in your shadows.
I’ve seen the love letters written
in graffiti and grocery lists,
in bus transfers and coffee cups,
in the way strangers nod to each other
when the streetcar lurches to a stop,
and the doors open.

And, as long as I stand here,
stone face turned toward
your trembling lights,
I’ll keep watch,
not out of duty,
but out of devotion.
Because you,
my Queen City,
are alive.
And in your darkness,
you shine.

🩵