Oozing from Jones’s literary work is an aggressive honesty, a fight to take flight and become his best self, and his winding journey to success influenced his honest personality. Raised in the Nichiren Buddhism faith by his single mother, Jones felt the world deeply from a young age and was always cognizant of his queer identity, even when it scared him. From Tennessee to Texas, Jones moved and grew while learning the duality of struggles and sensitivities.

Through the gut-wrenching poetry of Prelude to Bruise and the poignant narratives in How We Fight for Our Lives, Jones produces bravery out of loneliness and pain. As a young boy, when searching for historical stories of gay men, the frightening death statistics overwhelmed Jones, but finding the literary greatness of James Baldwin showed him he had the power to weave his own narrative, death be damned.

Jones’s memoir does an excellent job of showcasing the ebbs, flows, and frightening rhythms of being a Black gay man in the South during the 1980s and ‘90s. Nationally televised hate crimes burn in the back of Jones’s youthful memories, and his relationship with his mother, although loving, was also filled with inky silences, where the word gay was always absent.

So, like so many other gay Black men in the southern United States, Jones inherently grew up on his own. Even though his mother, Carol Jean Sweet-Jones, never strayed from his side, the mother–son duo lived parallelly without the intersection they both craved. A religious strain with his grandmother also haunted Jones, causing him to harbor feelings of anger and sadness for relationships filled with miscommunications.

Still, the source of support Jones’s family provides for one another is forever unbreakable, giving him the exact strength needed to chase after his dreams. Heartbreak from a lack of funds for NYU tuition and his mother’s blooming illness scared him only for a moment, never deterring him from pursuing the life he knew existed out there for him.

Jones’s literary rise came during a time of bubbling turmoil. In 2014, with Trayvon Martin still fresh in our minds and Michael Brown freshly buried, Jones officially published his first full-length collection of poetry, Prelude to Bruise. All the strife that comes from being a Black boy trying his best to get the opportunity to grow fills the pages. Each rhyming line forces you to tap your toe to Jones’s rhythmic life, filled with confusion, care, and stories of men finding their wings.

Reading Jones’s poetry, his words hang from the tongue, slashing every reader with the truths of what it takes for queer men to find their masculinity. Even as a woman, Jones’s male perspective captures me immediately, allowing me to relate to his plight, grappling with what it means to be a man.

Prelude to Bruise is intimate, pure thoughts and feelings and all. Like peeking through a gap in a door, Jones’s innermost thoughts flicker through his prose. Poems like “After the First Shot” paints a vivid picture of what it feels like to be a Black boy searching for freedom, ending poignantly with, “To answer your rifle’s last question: if you ever find me, I won’t be there.”

History, especially Black and Brown history, comes with so much pain, and still, Jones finds a way to channel that pain into growth, like a sidewalk flower swaying in the breeze of city traffic and rushing feet. All our history gets swallowed by Jones, then regurgitated back in a way that makes every other person feel that pain, too.

Oddly enough, his shared pain feels like a validating hug, a signal that we’re never alone. Pieces of ourselves are always sitting, lurking, and waiting for the chance to break free and become whole.

How We Fight For Our Lives, Jones’s incredible memoir published in 2019, takes us on the ride of his life and allows us to better understand the poetry permeating the pages of his previous work. Jones shows that growth is jumbled, confusing, and messy—first hook-ups can happen in library bathrooms, safe spaces can form in thin air, and death comes for us all.

The themes of grief and loss—prompted by his mother’s death in 2011 and resurfaced during COVID—led Jones to publish his 2023 poetic semi-sequel to his memoir, Alive at the End of the World. This poetry collection dives deeper into the beautiful narratives Jones always brings to the page. By incorporating the history that made him the person he’s become, Jones owns his vulnerability as a strength, a way to heal individually and collectively.

In 2022, Jones teamed up with his favorite group chat to discuss the weights of the world in their Vibe Check podcast. Putting a magnifying glass on culture, mental health, and identity, co-hosts Jones, Zach Stafford, and Sam Sanders come together to attempt to hilariously and honestly make sense of their world.

Digging between the layers, Vibe Check puts on your thinking cap and flexes your laughing muscles, a gratifying release from feeling alone. Episodes focus on topics as simple as gay candy and as heavy as grief, daring us to think critically about our world, however silly it can sometimes be. Jones’s storytelling skills excel through his words on the page and his conversations. He’s adept at twisting his life stories into something relatable for everyone. With the Vibe Check team, Jones broadens his audience, giving the podcast world the humor and honesty it needs. His role transcends writer, podcast host, connector, and communicator; Jones establishes himself as a changemaker.

and executive culture editor at BuzzFeed. Going viral for his 2015 BuzzFeed article “Self-Portrait Of The Artist As Ungrateful Black Writer,” Jones succinctly conveys a story that an entire collective can feel, where Black artists are faced with slights and microaggressions, regardless of how far they climb the literary ladder.

Barriers have never blocked Jones from his path. He’s on a mission to heal the world by showing everyone the importance of sharing their story. Jones earns his changemaker title with his creative prowess by being an example for artists everywhere. As a queer Black writer myself, Jones shows me that honesty trumps all and that the world will continue to get worse if we never choose to own our narrative.

When speaking with NPR’s podcast Fresh Air about his 2019 memoir, Jones described his way with words best: “We’re all struggling.” He continues, “I want you to experience what’s going on in my book and think about it in relation to your own life, whether that’s because you’re like, ‘Oh, this is totally different!’ Or because you’re like, ‘Hmm. This is really familiar.’” That aching desire to connect with society makes Jones the incredible writer and human being he is.

As if he can see into the soul of America, Jones uses his observed femininity and lived masculinity to hold a mirror to society. Jones, marching to the beat of his own drum, is the perfect person to remind us that our country is only great when every American story can be heard and felt, including the stories of our LGBTQ+ Black men.

When interviewed three years ago for the Time Sensitive podcast, Jones aptly described the core of his drive to share his life’s story with the world around him. “I’ve had this ambition to honor the fact that I believe Black queer people can be our historians. They can be at the center of culture. They can be the people who write the great American novel…”

As soon as the weight of our current world weighs on you and your mind is reeling for someone to relate to, pick up one of Jones’s literary works. Whether it’s his memoir, poetry collections, or entire bibliography, he’ll calm your fears and be the mirror our world desperately needs. Jones is a bridge, a connector, a rhythmic member of his communities, and a literary visionary who has etched his mark on American history.