Half-Pipped

Gay people are my favorite people.

I can't say why, really. Maybe because, I, like them, feel like a live-pipped sea turtle: stuck halfway out of my shell, present in this world but not quite part of it.

A gay home is the happiest thing. Photos of life partners arm-in-arm at 1 year, 5 years, 10 years crowd dressers and coffee tables like war medals on display.

It is the safest thing. Stacked and scattered in the open, books with titles like When I Knew, Becoming Visible, and The Gay Metropolis, books by David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs, books with pink covers and unabashed photo spreads, affirm the reality of their story--their ancestors, their struggle, their triumph, their love.

Two names on the mail. Arthritic pets. A son.
Lights strung on the deck for summer parties. Receipts piled on the dresser. Clothes mixed together in the closet.
All of this normality left neatly behind each morning, erased when the front door closes, tucked silently into a band on the fourth left finger (which no one asks about and is not mentioned)--because in the real world, it isn't normal. It's Unnatural, Unconstitutional, Unbiblical, Wrong.

It can be the saddest thing, as a secret. It is seen by the world as a shell that clings to the turtle's weak legs, dragging him down as he struggles through the sand.

But I know the true secret:
The world is a shell, and this love is the widest sea.