Gay Black Boys

Black gay boys walking dirt roads, cobblestoned streets, runways ,and pavements. Picking Cotton, husking corn. Hosed in the streets. Raped by slave masters with no light skinned babies to expect. Molested by "straight men" who are repressed. Beat in the night by men who want to feel STRONG. On slave ships, buggies, slave blocks, back of buses, colored sections, North of the Mason Dixon, trolleys, planes, and ships. Dredlocked, conked, Jerry Curled, Caesared, naturaled, parted, high top faded, and braided. Lisping, Strolling, Switching, Dancing, Singing, Hating Themselves, Loving Each Other. Always there are black gay boys.



He loves me. I did not know I could be loved.God loves me, but hates my sin. He lusts for my sin. Kisses my lips, licks my nipples, sucks my dick, eats my ass. he makes me feel special. He loves my sin, our sin, and I've never felt so righteous. I love him. Maybe I can learn to love myself. He is my reflection. I am afraid to look in the mirror and see who I am. I glance at him clothed, naked, open. He is love, I am love.



Sex is not love.


I feel so bad though, and it feels so good. Makes me feel good about who I am, that I can please another man. I could not please my father, and my mother is just a father in a skirt and I can not please her either. I can't please white Jesus crying tears on the cross knowing my seduction for dark lights, loud music, pursed lips, with reads more painful than death.

"The first naked man he saw was lynched. Hanging from a tree, rope so long so strong to hold a black man and his demons, deferred dreams, and tears. His face was disturbingly somber. He did not have a penis. My Pa says they chop them off sometimes, put them in jars...as souvenirs".

Black gay boys marry. They try to form their masculinity inside the wombs of other women, because it did not occur inside of their mother. "What did I do wrong? How did this happen to me?" Questions echoed between mothers, fathers, and sons.

Singing their hearts to God in the choir to open his ears to the pleas you make for "deliverance". Reading the bible. Reading the young queen that stepped on your shoe. Vodka and Olive oil. Lube and Communion grape juice.

Bitch. Cunt. Sister. Brother. Ms. Thang. Mother. Legends. Trade. DL. "Only on Saturdays after I get high".

GRID, destroying facades cemented in shame, guilt, and lies. Tearing doors off of closets, revealing a shrunken character to families more concerned with their appearance than their loved ones. "maybe if I hadn't found so many men who loved my sin...then..." Entire generations of black gay boys destroyed. Who will lead us into manhood? When there are few faint voices of black gay manhood, and besides we don't live for the old queens. (They have wrinkles.)


Up in drags, down in Timbs.

Feeling Isolated, Weird, Different, Special. Finding others. Elation. Vapid.

Finally we reach mirrors to see how fat we are. Why Anthony or Kevin did not look at us? WE starve ourselves of food, for attention from the ones screaming, "no fats, no fems". Slicing arms to visualize the pain inside.

Blasting beats off the walls that know you better than your mother, as you do dips onto the pillows on your bed. Feeling excluded because you do not fit into the stereotypical effeminate man, yet you don't live in feigned paradigms of black masculinity. Walking in your mother's shoes, knowing you're supposed to fill you father's.

Black gay boys in love with themselves. Removed of closets. Realizing they are more than a dick, ass, tongue, hand, more than their sexuality, which exists further than sex.

Wondering why they are black gay boys...because we were meant to have character and continue a legacy.

Langston Hughes, Bruce Nugent, Bayard Rustin, Essex Hemphill, Kevin Aviance, Harmonica Sunbeam, Pepper Labeija... and the list will continue, because always there are black gay boys.

(P.S. in a strange pensive place right now.)

-Marz