I love this picture. It gives me the strangest feeling of knowing a person in black and white. Puffed out lips, ready for kissing, and hair falling like blinders over one eye. The brownness. Because I'm not sure. And there you are. Giving me that sexy look that�s not for me at all. And most of all, you're balanced on a blue bubbly cube.

Why is so much in life just like hardened jello?

And yet that makes me think of my body, grown soft. Doing yoga and playing with handfuls of my stomach. When is that jello going to harden?

But suddenly, and I love this because it�s only February, I smell spring in the air.

Yes, over the chocolate.

And it transports me to another world. I am free in a body of muscles and twine. Rising up from the ground like a pile of sculpted leaves. Breaking free and running like the wind. Watching, in gold, as I hug two coaches at once. As I find a rose on my doorstep. As I wake up to that blue morning feel and do yoga underwater.

All in love.

And I want it again. God. I can taste the asphalt. I can smell the lotion again and see all the faces turned away. Even more smiling. The mosquitoes are buzzing around my feet slapping through puddles. And the smell of saturated earth meets my awaiting nose.

This is life.

And I did this once, muscles screaming, suffocating, crossing the line to the endless cheering of team mates, coaches. Family. My dad with that far of look, you know the one, where he tries to hold in tears.

Funny how this bar of soap in front of me is entitled Cool Spring. But then, it wasn't a cool spring. It was a spring so electrified and hot that it felt like honey running down an already sweating back. It felt like the sticky syrup of love, and I was running through it. So eager to reach the other side that I never knew what was waiting for me.

And now I see the postcard of Venice laying there. Kind of bent. And I can honestly say that track season last spring meant more to me than that voyage. More to me than the gondolas and flattering masks and pandering hands. Voices cheering out welcomes behind bared teeth. English, French, Italian, German, Japanese...

But last track season. Now that was something. Everyday was a heaven in bloom. And I'm not sure I saw it then. I just remember all the little things. The Astroturf carpet. Being stretched so hard that I had to grit my teeth and rip out all the grass around me to fight off the pain. And the knowing that the actual race I was stretching for would hurt at least five hundred times worse, if not more.

Maybe its really that when you're out there on that track, the black covered in white lines, the measuring of everything you are or want to be. Your soul, because that�s what it is, comes out. Everything does fall away. And your left either with girls trotting along and chatting in the end, or the runners who grit their teeth and each step, just one more, will not stop. Will not give in. Because god damn it. The finish line is right there.

And you're not getting there before I am. So go ahead and try.

That's what I miss. Not all of this political bullshit. Not all of this, gee I'm in my room doing yoga, or I'm digging into the Nutella as silently as possible. I wonder what they'll think. Because I do wonder.

So here I am. Sitting here with this picture of most host brother's girlfriend to keep me company. I'm wondering what words might change my mind. I'm wondering what direction in the pinwheel of arrows to choose.

I refuse to believe that the right answer isn't in there somewhere.

Do I start track season all over again? Can I run? Can I work out and not give a damn what anyone else says. Or do I have to act cool, like I'm sure she did, to win someone's kisses? Not that I really want to win kisses or anything, not really, its just all in my mind.

Wow. Do you hear that? A symphony is starting. Its giving me the chills. I can feel the gun going off again, and I can feel my eyes straining against the sweat to count just how many steps left before the end.

I want that burn.

So here it is. The verdict. Can I make my life into a track season of my own? Can I run to the finish line against the trees? Can I do it all over again, even not being in the spotlight? Not wearing short shorts to show off my incredibly muscled legs? Not going for runs where I know that people will see me, just to hear their horns honk and be able to smile and wave? Grimacing every morning as I tiptoe through my host brother�s room, praying to a god I don't believe in that I don't wake him up?

And there are your eyes watching me. On your cube of hardened jello. Air bubbles from a breath of life so stale that it can't live much longer. A book of poems, broken mice, a pretzel crumb. All about to pass out of existence.

Just like all of the shitty ideas that are going to go against me. For the first time in my life, or hang on, maybe the second, I'm going to have to go against the flow of what is considered to be cool, to be right. Hell, the first time it turned out well enough. I can do it again. After all.

I'm the strongest person I know. It's true.

So what is the answer to all of those questions? Oddly, I seem to see it in her eyes. I like that. It�s like we have a connection. Like Mona Lisa. You're giving me the star prayer, but I think it�s a different version.

Come on. I know you can figure it out.

Yes.

So step out of my way before I run you over. Yes I did sink you Kurt, you were the titanic, and I was the iceberg you fell in love with.

But I won't be undone. It�s finally time to realize my strength and to do something about it. To become real in a way not paved out already by society.

You can see my dark eyes already, turned up against the pain, fighting the flow. Refusing to be cut down.

I've never been one to take the easy route have I?

Ha ha. I'm ready.

Yes.