The most tender part of queerness or being Same Gender Loving is that we have the capacity to care beyond hetero-normative ways. And we mostly become like family when we’re not romantically involved. We love in the cracks that other people struggle to accommodate or name. We love others in shameless ways that the uninformed or unevolved have no capacity to fathom. Not even with the simplest of explanations, so it’s best to live out our gift of love in ways that help us feel “here” and seen. In not so many words we say, “I see you. You’re beautiful in ways that are inexplicable; I see the purity of your beauty and embrace it. Fully. Never fear to express yourself to me.”
There should never be taboo in expressing appropriate feeling. As humans we’ve been conditioned to compartmentalise emotion in ways that deprive us of true human exchange.
Love isn’t always roses, rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes it’s a barefoot walk on gravel while viewing a gorgeous sunset. As I get older, my capacity to recalibrate the kinds of love I give and allow that which I receive keeps seeping through the spaces that used to be occupied by awkwardness.
I’m learning. I’m finding new language tone and continually shifting and leaning into that which cradles the spirit of Ubuntu and autonomy in the same breath. What a journey it is.
By Frank Malaba
Frank Malaba Prosetry 