High Horse

Dear Anon. 

You are none 
And will only ever be 
Known, as none 
Who has only ever 
Half tried. 

But will continuously 
Be searching 
For a person to deem you so, 
And that person 
Is only slightly dumber, 
And slightly less something, 
Then you. 

Congratulations. 
You are average.

Defendant's Plea 

And then there’s always some family shit, 
and the ex boyfriend shit, 
and being stuck in traffic for 3 hours, 
while also being up since 6am shit. 
And my mom’s shit. 
And I just physically feel like shit. 
But you are not shit. 
And you certainly don’t deserve 
to be treated like shit. 
And I think I treated you like shit.
And shit, I’m sorry.

Old Joy when I really meant Sorrow 

You know the thing, 
That makes us love 
Poorly. 
Makes us tell lies, 
and become good at lying. 
It's the tropes 
That are considered tropes for a reason. 
Deadbeat dad 
Or worse, 
Deadbeat mom. 
Former fat kid, 
Bullied for race, 
Slept with a teacher and regretted it. 
Slept with a teacher and didn’t regret it. 
The whole bit 
And we have to carry it with us 
And act like it’s not the reason 
We set 
Expiration dates on these things 
With this reckoning 
of ambivalence, 
Being right, 
Once again.

The Doubting Disease

An absurd amount of Our Fathers’

Like,

15 Our Father’s
10 Hail Mary’s
5 Glory B’s

And then,
there is guilt
For not filling my day up with more bullshit

Bullshit, I’d normally be down for

Yet here I am
Inescapably
Catching up with myself

So adhered
To the sadness
From the absence of you,
Which has become a
New
Different kind,
of sadness.

I mean,
God is wonderful,
And all

But,
Please,
Touch my mouth.

Lizzie Scheader is a New York based multidisciplinary artist, specializing in production arts, installation, and creative writing. Her work centers around showcasing personal narratives through multiple mediums, ranging from paper making to ambient sound scoring. These pieces are derived from an ongoing project titled “Before I Leave”, a post minimalist conceptual project, in which written work was repurposed into new paper, as a means of abstracting and concealing the context. The ink from the words provides a sense of abundance as it acts a dye for the material. The work centers around showcasing and displaying vulnerability in theoretical and intimate ways. As of 2025, the project has exceed 700 new pages of paper.