Some days, I just want to see myself on screen without feeling like I’m searching for scraps. Tonight, I got lucky. It was a tiny moment, not a big speech or rainbow confetti. Just two Black boys sitting on a stoop, laughing about nothing, knees touching, heads tipped back. The kind of scene that floats by if you’re not looking for it, but if you are—if you know—you feel it all the way down.
I watched them laugh and suddenly remembered being sixteen, pressed up against my best friend on her porch, pretending we were just close because it was cold. I swear I could smell summer concrete and grape soda. The way those boys looked at each other, playful and soft, no one calling it out, no one making it a lesson. I felt the muscles in my shoulders unclench a little. I didn’t know I was holding them so tight.
There’s a special kind of magic in seeing joy that looks like yours, especially when you’re used to seeing Black boys on screen only when things go wrong. I caught myself smiling, real quiet, like I was in on the secret. Queer joy isn’t always fireworks. Sometimes it’s just a shared joke, a gentle lean, a safe place to land.
That scene didn’t change my life or anything. But it did make me feel a little less alone, and a little more possible. I’m not asking for a parade. Just more moments like that: soft, regular, a little silly. Seen and smiling, right there on my couch.