Voices of Pride creates space for queer voices that refuse restriction, dilution, or apology. Through writing, art, and lived experience, LGBTIA* creators reclaim visibility, challenge inherited norms, and speak to the realities of identity, resistance, intimacy, and belonging.

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Body to Body Talk

When one body begins speaking to another,
the rest of the world falls quiet to listen..

And once the body starts speaking,
its language has no ending..
No pause..
No..
No final sentence..

Some words are said through embracing..
Some are born the moment lips find lips..

Some words live inside a gaze,
while others travel through the trembling tips of fingers..

And there are words..
only the nipples know how to pronounce..

There are parts of us..
that do not understand immediately..

So we repeat ourselves..
again and again..
until every wandering limb,
every hesitant pulse,
learns the meaning of desire..

Yet there remain secret dialects,
inside the union of two bodies..

There are places on the skin,
that understand nothing..
until fingertips return softly,
rewriting the explanation in touch..

Some parts of the body,
believe only in caresses..

And so the conversation stretches into the night,
slow,
breathless,
without any  end…

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Today I ache for you

Today, I ache for you with hunger…

I long for you… for your scent… for the fragrance of your love…
that fragrance that clung to my skin like fate, impossible to strip away.

I crave the salt of your love, my friend…
and its quiet fire.

And when you emerge from behind my memories and wrap your arms around me…

That embrace of ours felt like a fugitive fleeing an Arabic speech festival,
an embrace condemned to secrecy, forbidden from revealing itself…
far from the grammar of command and denial,
far from the language of repression, interrogation, and accusation…
far from all the strict rules of Arabic and its heavy prepositions.

And then I understood, completely,
why Agatha Christie wrote all her detective novels in the kitchen.

I understood where that sudden divine spark of inspiration came from…
how a story is born..

And how something as simple as spoons,
can stir the soul so deeply..

How a man’s heart can burn
inside a kitchen..

An hour past midnight…
and after that forbidden Arabian embrace

We were on my bed—
or perhaps only an embrace away from it.

And you were searching my body carefully…
looking for the faint trace a wandering kiss
might have left behind..

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About the Author

Sam is a queer human rights defender, community organizer, and writer from Syria. His work focuses on LGBTQIA+ rights, displaced communities, women’s empowerment, and grassroots advocacy in conflict-affected contexts. He has participated in regional and international human rights and queer advocacy spaces across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Through writing and storytelling, he explores memory, displacement, identity, and survival within queer Arab experiences. Sam believes in the power of culture, community, and collective care as tools for resistance and healing.

Contact: sam.jesus@proton.me

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Photography

The Voices of Pride campaign features work by Elizaveta Bogachavo, drawn from the project Ephemeral Reveries through the Alchemy of Queerness. You can read more about Elizaveta and the project here.

Instagram: @lisa.bogachova

Website: www.elizavetabogachova.me

Model: Chelsea Dix

Instagram: @howtochelsea