Em and Lytcia

Em and Lytcia are both Black, queer women living in Brussels. Partners, lovers, and individuals navigating polyamorous relationships, their lives exist beyond simple definitions. Open in who they are, they continue to move through a world that often struggles to hold complexity.

Though visibly present, they are frequently misunderstood. Their identities flattened, their queerness overlooked, they are often perceived only through the lens of race or gender. For Em, this experience carries another layer. Adopted and raised by a white family, she has at times been called a “bounty”, a painful term used to question the authenticity of her Blackness through proximity to whiteness.

For Lytcia, self-expression becomes a language of resistance and affirmation. Through clothing and personal style, she navigates and articulates her relationship to gender, identity, and visibility, reclaiming the right to be seen on her own terms.

Within their personal lives, visibility feels more complicated. Their relationship exists openly, yet remains largely unspoken in family spaces. There is no explicit rejection, but little acknowledgment either. Silence lingers where conversation could exist, leaving questions that neither certainty nor distance fully resolve.

Still, Em and Lytcia continue to choose one another with tenderness and intention. Their relationship becomes a quiet insistence on existing fully, even in spaces where recognition remains uncertain.

They are here, loving, navigating, becoming.

Brussels, Belgium (2022)