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Cayce is a Sober, Vegetarian, Queer, Intersectional, eclectic witch living in Atlanta with her two dogs. She attends GSU for film and looks forward to eventually moving out of the city to rescue, foster, and train dogs. She's currently full-time caretaker for her terminal dog, Phoebe, and writing a memoir and short film inspired by this emotional and life-altering transition.
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I Carry Her
I pick and pick and still she distances herself further. I carry her weight. My back stiffens and pulls and knots. I clean her face, a fleeting opportunity to connect as she surrenders in my hands. Surrenders to the familiarity of my touch. This is a glimpse of how I want to remember her forever. She's always been the dignified type. I tell her not to be ashamed. Preparing each meal, softer and softer. Dreading the day soon when her appetite perishes.
She seeks the cool tile floor. Her thinning, exposed tail sweeps the spot she lies. Her breath whistles, turns to gasping. My heart rips over and over. I carry her weight. We both miss chasing squirrels, perching on window-side couches, morning cuddles and licks, relaxed and aimless car rides.
How can I breathe when she struggles for air? How do I find momentum in a suspended state of mourning? Exhausted from explaining and apologizing and mood swinging and anxious picking. She is my world, and I carry her, heart bleeding out. One day at a time in a life on hold. In a life dedicated to her. In a life that is reluctantly learning how to live without her.
I watch her sleep, and I witness relentless courage. Vulnerability. The love and compassion my addiction tells me I'm not worthy of, she gives to me unconditionally. Forced to face a tender place that I've tried to outrun and numb and push down, down, down. In her I see hope and grace and everything I learned in Bible school, when life was less complicated. In her I see all that I've done to care for another, and it gives me the strength to face another day. That's my courage I'm looking at. That's my vulnerability. I can't say where she stops and I begin, and I will carry her with me always.
Power Outage
It's quiet here in the dark
Stark silence
Shadows and smoke
Burning wood and wicks
The growl of a stomach
Paws softly traipsing on carpet
A car speeding by, splashing water onto the sidewalk
The typing of keys releasing energy
At once my mind is restful
Soothing thoughts come that calm the unknown
As soon as I settle into my place in the night
Welcoming the relief that solitude brings
Electricity returns
And my newfound power leaves
Addicted to Love
You go down like a fortune cookie that tastes of it’s wrapper
Generic prophecies leaving a mediocre impression upon my lips, at best
Words as empty as the heart you feign
Selected as randomly as you chose me
I'm counting on my lucky numbers
To banish my ghosts from you
Meanwhile you swiftly disengage
As I gauge my worth on a world untrue
Awaking me from the fantasy I've come to abhor
Where I will not rest until I hold your hand
And it is your hand I would gamble my all on
My lovers' eyes and spellbound mind
Withdraw and draw blanks
At the mention of your name now
I retreat under scrutiny and defeated investigation
It was not time
You were never mine
And it is my heart that is in question
Things That Make You Sweat
Desired sweat, exerting the body
Proof of a job well done
Unwanted sweat, muggy in a gray shirt
Contempt like a cloud awaiting sunset
Nervous sweat, counterintuitive
Clammy hands, appendages tingling
Panicked sweat, speaking publicly
Or in the presence of more than three
Lovers' sweat, hazy and dreamlike
Dripping with salty pheromones
To love is to secrete, and to fear is to perspire
The spectrum blurred, rationality sinking higher
The day I found you perplexity ensued
When I consulted the sweat scale and fell harder from the truth