The Beauty of It.

The deal with cotton mouth is that if you swallow, you throw up. The thing is, cotton mouth is like a time bomb, waiting to explode, almost. It sits in your mouth and waits until the exact second where it knows it will go off, and kaboom!, everything is a shattered mess, broken, bleeding, lying out on the floor for someone else to pick up.

That might have been a little drastic. But okay, consider it like a bomb, for just a minute, and count the seconds with me. In ten, nine, in eight, seven. Before, it was the worst feeling in the world, and I just got it over with. I swallowed and then hurled last night’s drastic alcohol ingestion into the fancy toilet sitting in the bathroom. Now, I test how long I can go without swallowing. Self-destruction, maybe; self-will; self-control. One of them. All of them. I haven’t figured it out yet.

Once, I asked my dad what death meant. He was a man of words. They poured from him, remember? He wrote them in lyrics, he spoke them in lines; he had to know this answer; had to. But instead, he stared at me blankly, and asked what I meant. I said, you’re never dead. You always have your soul. It just ascends from you body and goes somewhere else, right? So, what does death mean? He told me he didn’t know. He shook his head, kissed the crown of my head, and walked out, luggage in tow, gone for three months on some album promotion tour.

I looked up to my dad. Thought he was the world. The best person on the entire planet; I’d never need any other man in my life. He was the only one – he had all the answers, mapped out perfectly on the Life Map – and marriage would never even be a possibility in my mind.

I reach thirty seconds, still lying in my bed, staring up at the ceiling. My blood’s pulsing through me slowly, my head feels heavy, like if I sit up, it might implode, and then what will happen? Thirty nine, thirty eight, my highest record is two whole minutes without swallowing after waking up. I wonder if I’ll make it in Guinness Book of World Records. Doubt it; I’m not much of anything.

Actually, that might be a lie. I’m Katy Leto, I’m sneaky and a liar; I’m lifeless and dull; I’m questionable and curious about everything. But in the end, I’m the famous-only-not-really-famous Katy. Sure, I was life changing when my father stepped out of the hospital with me in his arms at three days old, paparazzi snatching up the chance with joy. But after my three year old birthday party when I vomited on a journalist’s daughter after too much cake, they realised I was just a fucking normal kid in a Famous Kid’s body. Journalists play favourites as much as much as some people’s parents do.

I reach a minute. I think maybe I’ll break my record today. Maybe I’ll be able to stand it. I think maybe, if I hold off long enough, the feeling in my mouth will go away, and my head will stop weighing fifty pounds, and my stomach won’t be such good friends with my bile duct. These are hopeless wishes, ones I know will never ever come true. Just like all the other ones.

My outlook on life is very cynical. This is another trait I’ve received from my father. I know this is also a trait that he takes near proud on; it’s because we’re always expecting the other shoe to drop. The monster to come out from the closet. That’s what happens when your parents are famous, I guess.

A minute and a half. This is when sweat begins to seep from my pores, and I groan inwardly, knowing I won’t last any longer. A long glance at the toilet. And then a deep breath. The deal with cotton mouth is that if you swallow, you throw up. It’s actually called Alcoholics Mouth Every Morning. I think. Maybe. I rush to the bathroom, and empty my stomach.

I’m not a pyromaniac. But fire is somewhat fascinating. Here’s what you need: a bottle of Mean Green. The bleach substance, not the bleach-less one. A lighter. Spray the Mean Green on the tiles, in a shape, any shape. Sometimes it’s my initials, sometimes they’re drunken designs; a fake cubistic Picasso painting. Once the design is made, take the light, tilt the flame towards it, and watch it ignite. It burns out the shape, and when it reaches the end, it falls out.

It’s fun to watch. It’s fun to imagine that your life is that. Through the designs, burning out quickly, and then, with a final sizzle, it dies out. Dead. Empty. The show is fucking over, just like that. And then I do it all over again, for the hell of it.

The reason I know my life will just move through the designs like a marionette doll stringing through all the movements is because my life is just that. Wake up, go to school, come home, do my homework, drink myself to sleep (depending on the day), and do the very same thing all over again. I haven’t got much friends. The mutual ones, that I sit with at lunch, the ones that ask me for the French homework when they got too wasted to care last night. I’m the Famous-Only-Not-Really-Famous person. When that happens, you’re in the hot seat for two seconds before they realised that you weren’t worth the time or effort.

Through the designs, without love or anything else. I won’t be anything much to stare at. A step down from a Mona Lisa, the painting hanging next to it, that nobody ever notices.

Instead of going to school just then, I continue the fiery designs on the bathroom floor, taking th Zippo and tilting it forward every time a new design is created, watching it burn out once again. The door opens, and my dad walks in. All he does is take one small glance, before a sigh falls off his lips. “Kate, what are you doing?”

“Watching death,” I respond, and his eyes narrow, his chin tilts upwards. His arms cross.

“Watching… fuck, what the hell, Katy?” He turns and slams the door, calling out for me to go to school, now. I shove the Mean Green back under the cupboard, slip my Zippo into my bag, and walk out.

He’s making coffee now. “Katy, no more fire,” he tells me, handing me a cup. I take a drink, set it down, and walk out to school.

Our school looms over other schools. Sort of. Metaphorically. It’s got all the Famous Cool Kids in it, so other schools are semi-intimidated about it. I step inside, a breeze of student scents drifting past me. There’s a few kids who live in my apartment building standing in one corner, talking. I roll my eyes and slide past them.

I moved her only just a little while ago. Midterm is hard enough, but then no friends on top of it all was just kind of unbearable. Nobody took up any interest in me; everybody’s already arranged in their own cliques by midterm.

So I just sneak around people. I cause mayhem where it isn’t needed. The lockers that got spray painted, the bathroom the got flooded; me. People always least suspect the quiet girl who is sitting in the middle row, taking notes and studying for exams. They wouldn’t think she was doing all that silly stuff. They wouldn’t think she was at home, lighting fire to bleach and drinking herself to sleep, occasionally.

That’s the fun in all of this. The mayhem that stirs around the school, the things I occasionally do to get a laugh. It’s not that I hate these people. It’s that I’ll probably never get caught. It’s that while my father’s away, touring and freaking out about new movie scripts, I’m locked in the apartment or in school, and there’s got to be something thrilling for me. Self destruction; self will; self control; that’s all of it. That’s all of what I need.

Katy Leto’s quiet, sure, but that doesn’t mean she’s not a bitch. And that, all in all, is the beauty of it.