Existence

I think I know what the problem is. The problem is: I'm suddenly this thing called a 'black gay man' and this doesn't seem like it should be news but it is and that is the problem.

Theproblem is that I do not exist. This is confusing. I understand. I was confused. For a while at least.

But how can that which does not exist express?

How indeed?

Let's call me a specter, rather, an optical illusion: that trick of light that exists only when we experience it.

That is what I am--now you see me; now you don't. Now I see me; now I don't.

I am as invisible to myself as I am to you.

Briefly consider a moment: a thing which does not exist which cannot see itself and cannot be seen until it is experienced.

And then you would not need to ask me questions because then you would know what it is to be me.

I will put it to you again: black gay man. If you cannot conceive of such a thing, I do not blame you. It has taken me close to 30 years to arrive at what a black man is; it may take me another 30 years to arrive at what a gay man is.

Maybe when I am 90 I will arrive at what a black gay man is, an exquisite union that is like Kool Aid perfectly mixed, and look back from that hill at life seeing all that I only glimpsed or vaguely understood, guessed at or imagined.

I will put it to you a third time: black gay man. Have you seen one? Did you take a picture? Get an autograph? Did you commemorate this encounter? If yours is an untrained eye you may not likely see one again.

Is a black gay man your friend? Really? Your brother, cousin, son, uncle, nephew or grandson? What is the shape and texture of his life? Have you bothered to ask? Have you stopped to wonder? Or are you busy being an accomplice to his (en)forced invisibility at funerals, family reunions and church homecomings? Muttering 'there's no such thing as ghosts,' as you blankly ask what he's been up to?

Is a black gay man your lover? Was he a black gay man when you met him? Before or after you first made love?

Black gay man. Say it aloud. Hold it in your mouth. Swish it around like listerene until it burns you with its acid specificity.

If it feels like you are being beaten over the head its because you are. It's only fair. I am beaten over the head with Helzberg diamonds and sacred straight marriages. I am beaten over the head with gay as deviancy, disease, perversion or unfit to exist. I am beaten over the head with skinny melon breasted white women in Victoria's Secret as the gold standard of feminine beauty and pearly toothed muscle queens as the gay identity. I am beaten over the head with why my cell phone has an inadequate number of Gs and how now, for a limited time only, I can get two phones for the price of one!

I will beat you over the head with my gay blackness. I will hammer it into your skull like glowing metal. Because like a good person you have invited me into your mind and I have a small window in which to scratchitti my name in your grey matter so you do not forget me. This is our only chance.

Yes our.

For we are in this thing together.

My desire to be seen is not sufficient to make me appear to you.

You must make a choice. I am offering it to you now. And I am scared for you because you may not have this opportunity again.

Here goes.

I would like to know you. And I would like you to know me. We could share things: secret things, not-so-secret-things, jokes, recipes, meals, pieces of fruit. Perhaps we might become lovers; perhaps we might become friends. In either case we would both regain a sixpence of our humanity. For have all been robbed of this wealth, are being robbed of it everyday--not just me. If you did not know this, if this is news to you, then you are nearly bankrupt already and, perhaps, in more trouble than I.

But what I would like most from our acquaintance is for you to believe in me so that I may exist for you and you for me and thereby we may enrich each other. For what I crave most, as a starving man for a crust of bread, is a sense of reality.

There it ends.

You are blessed and cursed. Few are afforded this opportunity. Everything henceforward, everything proceeding from this moment is indisputably your choice.

Now you cannot say: 'I did not know,' 'I was never asked,' 'No one told me,' 'I have never seen.'

Many can say this though and relish the saying as an incantation to ward off the bogeymen.

This is understandable. There are many bogeymen. This is not, however, excusable.

I expect more from you. I have to. You are my only hope.

If you have the privilege (yes, privilege) of knowing or loving a black gay man, hug him. This is not therapy; it is called love.

When you hug him, hug him deeply--press yourself into his blackness. Do not be afraid. If you are lucky some of him will rub off on you. If he is lucky some of you will rub off on him. If we are all lucky this friction will ignite electric echoes of healing around the world.

If you have the privilege (yes, privilege) of knowing or loving a black gay man, if he is your friend and you are drinking beer or wine, if he is your lover and you are laying in the dark or it is Tuesday morning and he is patting himself down after a shower, look at him: and for no reason (or for every reason in the world) say 'Black is beautiful.' This is not therapy. It is called love.

He will laugh quizzically. Your job, friend or lover, is simply to smile broadly at him and let this truth wash over you like a tide.

He needs to hear this, ever if he doesn't know it;I know it and that is enough. Because for all the things he may have been beaten over the head with, he hasn't been beaten nearly enough with that.