homies don’t come out, they let you in.
or like some serious feelings about hoping my gender is future or whatever.
recently, i’ve been calling my body a ghost. an astral projection. i have always felt my body as outside of itself. masculinity under the guise of a Man(hood) honestly terrifies me. being a man has no urgency to me. while i never want to be absolved of blind spots, i don’t think identifying exclusively as male is safest for me to understand this / my body.
i have always been the softest boy. been shy smile & pretty hands. been getting older & becoming a further stretch from childish words for my body. but in boy(hood) i’ve long found a place to stay. the rare moments black boys are allowed innocence & possibility.
but now, i am finding myself to lead & be in new ways accountable to myself & my community. for how i’ve negotiated boy(hood) this feels like a departure.
i was raised to be a Grown Ass Man — “able to take care of himself & others.” i had already learned this from my mother. The grown-ass-est human i know. i have always know responsibility & leadership & assertiveness from Black women/femmes.
the community & lineage that forged me is a long line of gun-slinging, soul-saving, children-teaching, Black women. Man(hood) felt like a more ill-fitting necktie or noose or instruction for how i was wanted to operate in the world.
long have i wanted to move like my mother, how she reminds whole rooms who they are simply by walking in the door. i want to love how my grandmother loves so unafraid of night-time or white people, keeping me in her conversations with God & other folk.
but i know what this body do. how this body does. i have lived / will live often in the safety of being over six feet / brown skin / wild hair / smiley-faced. i negotiate male privilege daily, both with myself & how i navigate the spaces i share.
but like — what does all this mean?
ya boy is non-binary.
as in pronouns (they/he | them/him | theirs/his).
non-binary blxk homie.
(remember homie is gender neutral)
be well, beloved.
