A Photograph

Before playing hide and seek

We took a flash photograph in deep dusk

The two of us, arms wrapped around each other

Beaming as her sister snapped the shutter.

Returning to our campfire

She rushed to show her mother

the photo, to which her mother said

"Be careful, y'all don't want people thinking you're a couple."

And I forced a contorted face of abhorrence

A signal to her mother that the concept of us being more than friends

Was the end of all things.

I do love her.

Not in the way that gives me butterflies.

But, what if I did?

What made her mother think to say such a thing in the first place?

Was it my short hair cut or my

Boyish jacket draped around us or my

Arm wrapped around her daughter's neck?

Are best friends not allowed to beam and hug in the moonlight for a photograph?

In seems that the answer is no, if one of them is gay.