• I am a believer in all things imagery; from the cliffs of Dover, to the end of the rainbow. I travel the length of the yellow brick road.

    I was once a child, and like most children, I enjoyed scribbling tornados into the sidewalk. I pretended the tornados were real and I would spin around in circles every time I neared it, hoping that I would somehow withstand the dizziness and whirlwind I felt later. Let's just say, I liked testing my limits.

    As a teenager, I was told, that some limits do not exist. It became my new motto, even though at fifteen, I could barely bench 60, and I usually passed out before finishing a five k race. I told myself, that someday, I would be able to run a marathon, even if I had a bad heart, and my mother had to carry my inhaler. I was banned from sports, you see, so I threw myself into calculus, studying the limits, and fractions of what my life was to become. Some say that math is empty. Some believe that it is nothing like poetry, but for me, it made sense, and there was no room for "interpretation" or change, because at the end of the day two plus two still equals four, and nothing, not matter what you multiply it by, still equals nothing. I hoped I was a little bit more than zero.

    Sometimes I wondered what the girl I fancied, Maria, thought I was worth. It was that Tuesday in calc, I had the guts to ask.

    I was on a roll that day. I'd run the mile in less than eight minutes, not that impressive, but good for small-boned guy like myself. It was that day that the Quarterback, Josh Richards, gave me a high five. Even in elementary school, he was always the type to shout, "Go Casey," even when I could barely do five push ups. Since that time, our friendship went though various stages. Some years we would work on projects together, and go over to each other house a few times, while other years, we didn't even say hi to each other in the hall. Still, he encouraged me to throw the line out to capture Maria's heart. According to him, she liked brainy guys. She also had a history of letting buff guys in football jerseys wrap their arms around her. The first time I saw her, I couldn't help but notice how tiny she looked wrapped in six foot five, two hundred and twenty pound Marcus Raymond’s arms, like a fairy cradled in a giant. Still, she didn't seem terrified. She kept smiling. Her laugh was enough to make my ears flush red, and I spent the first day of Geometry getting yelled at by Mrs. Miranda to 'get the hood off my head'. I didn't want her to notice me, so I kept avoiding the eyes I was tempted to stare at.

    Eventually, Miranda made us partner up, and I was forced to work with yours truly. She didn't seem to notice how awkward I felt, because she kept talking to me--asking me questions that couldn't be answered with yes or no, and I was afraid of talking too much. Afraid that she would find me boring. Afraid that she would notice the way my head perked up at the idea of taking geometry notes. Afraid that she would hold that observation against me, and brand me a nerd. But she didn't do anything like that. She only kept asking me questions. Her eyes locked on mine as I answered and talked until the bell rung.

    Later, when I saw in her the hall that day, she waved. I remember how after that day, she would wave to me--it made me feel rather golden, until I realized she did that with every other boy she knew. Then, I felt like another blade of grass. Conforming.

    When I walked into Calc that day, she did what she normally did--waved, and returned to her girlfriends. Her hair had grown longer since freshman year and when I sat behind her, waves of gold brushed the edge of my desk. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to run my fingers though it, but I figured she'd find it creepy, so instead I sat there waiting for the lesson to end--deciding how long to look her in the eye--formulating the words--calculating the right rhythm to say it in.

    It wasn't until I doodled tornados all over my calc paper that I realized I missed a whole lesson on the applications of derivatives.

    Once the bell rung, I took a deep breathe. I realized that no matter how hard I decided to breathe, there wasn't enough oxygen in the world to let me say the words I'm about to say. I decided that I didn't need to breathe. I would test my limits and I would speak the words,

    "Maria,"

    She cocked her head to the side. She must have known it was serious, because I was never able to hold her attention for such a long time. I was always her favorite nerd, but never her favorite boy.

    "Are you okay?" She asked.

    I imagined myself having an asthma attack right in front of her. I imagined her avoiding me for weeks. The images quickly left my mind. I forced a smile, and pretended that I was John Smith, who could make words like "bloody testicles" seem romantic.

    "Yeah, I was just wondering if you wanted to come over to my house to review limits. If you want I could make you some popcorn, we could pop in a movie and call it a date." A tornado formed in my mind. I imagined the worst ways she could say no. Then I realized that I'd never said the words "dates" or "coffee" or "come" only a weird combination of prepositions, and nouns including you and me. I found myself waiting too long to grab my inhaler and when I reached for it, it wasn't there. I found myself staring at the back of her head. She was already meters away from me. A wall of people separated us and I hadn't even grabbed my textbook. I coughed a few times. I'd try again tomorrow. I told myself. The limit on my determination does not exsist, even if my confidence as I approach Maria equals zero.