LIZZIE SCHEADER
The week where nothing happened
Google: At what week in pregnancy does morning sickness start? That night I threw up halal and half a modelo. Nah. Last time I had sex was like ???, there is no way in fuck I am experiencing the repercussions of human chorionic gonadotropin aka HCG aka morning sickness aka hell on earth (as per one lovely redditor put it). I allowed myself 30 seconds to cry. Bad word. Bad word. Bad word. The 2 vertical lines, practically mimicking the twin towers: was this my 9/11? For nearly 10 days thereafter, I didn’t leave my bed. The smell of coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, nearly all those I loved, triggered retching. My mom repeatedly told me, eat saltines. NO! Those taste like anorexia. And besides, I haven’t showered in days, I cannot subject my roommates to seeing and smelling me in this state while ravaging the kitchen. They don’t deserve that. I don't deserve that. Do you get up slow in the morning? I don’t remember when I got up last. It’s important that you see the sun. The sun doesn’t give a shit about me (victim complex). I’m reaping what I sowed. A man would come to my bedroom (he’s totally done with, btw), touch my back and tell me everythings fucked. Yeah. I’m aware. I’m knocked up, and too broke/hated/and tired to talk about it. And the regurgitated, mastibutory, philosophy-bro-speak couldn’t even impair me beyond the nausea. Every waking moment, I was debilitated by car sickness, that was more relentless than a black Marlboro headrush (omg). And he’s there, practically jerking off to me about Foucault, and my ambivalent attachment style. Where was my community of women from r/pregnant when I needed them most? I have never wished to kill a small good thing so badly. Christ, I talk to the ants when I have my coffee in the morning, and there was a guppy inside me, half of someone I loved. Upon my appointment, I took note of the 9 people who checked in after me, answering the question “how are you?” all the same. They said they were good, because any other answer would be ill mannered, no? And I knew they weren’t good. Some without insurance. Had their moms there, daggering eyes of disappointment, and premarital impurity. But we take off our big girl panties, and get the damn thing done! Sit my assless ass in a recliner, arranged in a Sofia-Coppola-kind-of-way. “You go girl! You’re part of the club now!”, says the Lena Dunham-loving, pink-pussy-hatted, white feminist biotch, holding a poster that says something explicit, glittered with the word “CUNT”, and suddenly you feel like a prude right-winger, because every bit of your being is holding back an eye roll, so dramatic, it’s century defining. Cool. Sure. I can get down with it, but ya’ll didn’t warn me it’d suck this much? You seemed to have left that part out.
Lizzie Scheader is a New York based multidisciplinary artist and writer.
