My fantasies consist of dropping out of school and learning to play the guitar. I'll lay on the hood of my car in a parking lot cities away, toying with the strings of existence until the moon meets the sun and I'm home again, sleeping off the safety of the afternoon. We both know that if I had a better body, I'd spend my nights performing on a neon-caked dance floor, falling for someone that smells like cheap martinis, and picking up the dollar bills thrown deliberately at my feet.

On that day, my jeans will be tighter and my ego will be looser. I'll be smoking menthols on my parent's new patio, and my mother will make a remark about how girly a boy in his twenties looks holding cigarettes like pencils, as if dying can be as carefully calculated as nuclear fusion or splitting an atom. They'll say I'm addicted, but the only addiction I have is finding a good excuse to leave, and each breath is pulling me closer to a great escape.

I'll finally meet someone come Summer, and they'll leave me for a real man in Winter, one with better hair and a collection of indie rock records that send shivers up his spine. It'll be a man I'd like, too, since I keep the gun in the nightstand loaded so it'll never catch me by surprise. Even in my dreams I'm a minute late and only second best, since it's the closest thing to consistency I ever hope to find, and besides, I'm no good on top.

Perhaps I'll work in a bookstore, or help out a charmingly awkward librarian. I will leave happy notes in books for lonely people, promising that in the end, everything gets better, despite never finding a book with a good end or a person worth all of the paper cuts. I'm going to wear glasses then, but I'll be more blind than ever, drinking cold coffee in empty cafes and singing songs to furnished souls about promises I can't keep and the one that got away.

One day, my words will bring happiness to the masses, and my daydreams won't live in buildings made of ash. I will sleep without the fear of dreaming, to wake up and be reminded unconditional love isn't tangible, and empty hearts still bleed.