My heart spills open here, I wave the flag and hope they collect me like wildflowers.

I sat with my legs folded on her bed. Christian Talk Radio was on. Christian talk radio is always on, faintly in the background. I can filter the noise most of the time. Sometimes I hear a whole sentence on accident. It's not that I don't value what's being said, I just don't value the word unnatural being used as a synonym for homosexuality.

I'm brought back to three months ago, sitting on her porch, finally the conversation we'd been getting at, "I don't think we should ever cross that line together." A blow, or relief, I've never decided.

I didn't respond, I just listened. "It's just that I feel god created men and women to be together and I need strong arms around me...but it's not that I don't think of you like that...sometimes..." Enough to have to pray for peace over. Enough to close the conversation if it veers into the hands of possibility. I told her I understood, we carried on for another three months. She would sometimes say things like, "This is where we went on our first date," only to stop herself at the end of her own sentence with a smile that didn't mean much except it's easy to hide things. I never respond to those comments.

The only problem I have with it is when people don't understand their homophobia is rooted in their own indoctrination. She doesn't have to climb into my garden palace, but she should understand the reasons
he won't was something taught to her.

I heard talk radio. Basically, he said, god created men and women to be adjoined. Men and men or women with women were unnatural by the law that god did not create them to please each other, but the opposite...so, where does the concept of pleasure fit into everything? Not every orgasm has the intention or hope for procreation...more on this later...as it is ongoing, as is the struggle for equality and understanding...