Loud Invisibility | Black Gay & Lonely AF!

Lonely but loud, invisible but whole—abstract art reflecting the Black gay experience of being seen yet unseen in the search for love.

At night, I journal. In the morning, I try to catch the thoughts before they harden. This series comes straight from that place—old-school diary entries pulled from my dating life. Messy. Tender. Honest. It's not as polished as my other work, but it's unapologetic, vulnerable, and true. And that felt important to let live on the page.

This is my Black, queer Sex and the City—Black don't crack, love still dangerous, desire loud, standards high, heart open, and me refusing to shrink for anybody's comfort.

The man sits in the dark, curtains closed, hand between his legs, wondering when pleasure became a painkiller that stopped working.

My loneliness turned into something I didn't recognize. The kind where you don't get out of bed. Where the sheets become a shroud and the world outside your window feels like a story someone else is living. The kind where you're pleasuring yourself just to feel something other than the ache of wanting to build this life with someone who isn't there.

And I'm not desperate. Let's be clear about that.

I'm working. Writing. Acting. Consuming my craft like it's the only religion I got left, the only altar where my prayers don't bounce back unanswered. I'm proud of what I'm building—this literary Black gay voice that speaks even when the room goes silent, that won't be muted just because it makes people uncomfortable.

But it feels like shouting into the void sometimes. Like I'm the protagonist in some film nobody bought tickets for. Loud, queer, unapologetic—and completely alone.

The hardest part isn't being alone. It's being loud enough to be heard and still feeling invisible.

So I put myself out there. Stepped outside my cave, blinking like Lazarus emerging from the tomb. Went to the bars, the parties, the places where gay men swipe right in real life, where desire moves through the crowd like electricity through water.

And all these young boys circled. Gen Z through and through—crop tops, split-dyed hair, pronouns in their Instagram bios, talking about therapy like it's brunch plans. Fresh-faced, smooth-skinned, looking at me like I'm a prize they want to win or a war story they need to survive. Daddy's in season, apparently. Or I'm just cute for my age—a consolation prize I never asked for, a bronze medal in a race I stopped running years ago.

This isn't what I want.

Although I do want to flip some of them over—STOP. I'm getting messy.

I once dated a man. Muscled. Ripped. Skin that caught light like honey poured slow. Hot enough to make me forget my name and smart enough to make me want to remember it. The kind of brain I wanted to live in—conversations that lasted until sunrise, ideas that turned me on more than his body ever could, which is saying something because that body was a masterpiece.

But he couldn't finish without licking or smelling my feet.

I kicked him in the chin twice because that tickled.

Had to break it off.

Not today. Not ever. Not for me.

And that's the problem, isn't it? Even the good ones come with something I can't live with. Some dealbreaker I didn't see coming until I'm already attached, already imagining a future that can't exist because I refuse to bend on things that make my skin crawl.

I'm not afraid of being alone. I'm afraid of settling just to stop feeling lonely.

Can I do bad by myself, like the ancestors used to say?

Is my right hand enough?

Am I enough?

Here's what my gut keeps whispering: Trust your instincts. Save sex for later. Try something new, you slut.

But my hand is already moving again. Already reaching for what it knows. Already choosing the cave over the light because at least in here, nobody sees me kick them in the chin. Nobody sees me fail at wanting what I can't have and refusing what I can.

The apartment doesn't answer. The void doesn't answer. My craft doesn't answer.

My hand does.

And maybe that's the cruelest part—not the loneliness itself, but how good I've gotten at surviving it. How the sheets know my weight by heart now. How the curtains stay closed without me even thinking about it anymore. How my body has learned to be both the question and the answer, the wound and the knife, the man in the dark and the darkness itself.

I tell myself I'm choosing growth. Choosing to lead with my words instead of my body. Choosing to show up for myself in a way that matters.

But the man in the mirror—the one I can't see because the lights are off—he knows the truth.

I'm still here. Hand between my legs. Wondering when the painkiller will start working again.

Wondering if it ever really stopped.