David M. de León
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davidmdeleon.com
David M. de León
@davidmdeleon.com
450 followers 580 following 450 posts
Writer, academic, poet, nerd 🇵🇷
PhD in literature and Black studies. MPhil in skullduggery.
Poetry in places.
Mixed everything. Genderqueer bi eraser
CUNY Hunter.

http://davidmdeleon.com
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davidmdeleon.com
Four years after handing in my dissertation, I sent the second draft of my academic book, Epic Black, back to @dukeuniversitypress. There's too many people to thank on this journey so I'm just gonna go out and try to get some sun.
Title page of Epic Black by David M de León A table of contents for an academic book, with chapters on Tyehimba Jess, Claudia Rankine, Robin Coste Lewis, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs A long haired person sits in front of a computer desk in bright sunlight. A small Colombian and Puerto Rican flag. A plush cat from the anime Trigun. A pastel keyboard. A laptop.
September 1, 2025 at 5:02 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Back in the day I only used Steam to play silly coop games that cost ~$4. Then I bought Sunless Sea and played it for 150 hours.
Screenshot of Steam account history listing the first five games bought: Left for Dead 2, Team Fortress 2 upgrade, Serious Sam HD, and Sunless Sea
August 15, 2025 at 4:18 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Clair Obscur (2025)

@zachweinersmith.bsky.social
A four panel comic from Zach Weinersmith's smbc-comics.com. Two people are talking, one is holding a calculator. Panel 1: Character 1: "Hey, check it out! I got France to run on this old calculator!" Character 2: "What?" Panel 2: Character 1: "France is substrate independent! It’s just a collection of agents that believe themselves to be in a location with certain history and relationships! France is software!" Panel 3: Character 2: "France is not software." Panel 4: Character 1: "Look! It’s smoking and complaining about bread!" Character 2: "I’ll be damned." Calculator: "putain!"
August 4, 2025 at 3:47 PM
davidmdeleon.com
First pics from my makeup sesh with @thegamal.bsky.social
Long black hair, black and white dress, a genderqueer person with a beard and soft glam makeup holds their hair up while staring off into the distance A person with a beard and long hair in soft glam makeup smiles at the camera
January 17, 2025 at 7:20 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Poetry buddies
Two people of dubious ethnicity hug while huddled under a purple blanket
January 5, 2025 at 8:50 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Staying home but dressing up New Year's vibes
Someone in a black slip and black fishnets with a cheap plastic cowboy hat and a beard sits crosslegged on a blue couch
January 1, 2025 at 4:47 PM
davidmdeleon.com
At her 90th birthday reading Sonia Sanchez challenged us to not talk shit about anyone for a whole week. I made it a block and a half.
Sonia Sanchez, looking tiny and chic in a black coat with a long scarf, poses while people cheer. Behind her is a chocolate cake she won't eat.
December 10, 2024 at 6:14 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Really interested in how Moten has turned so definitively against the idea of the Black "community" as a sort of trap or consequence of oppression, not something inherently liberating. #blackademics
Screenshot of Poets_house Instagram reading: "Community is the grave that's been dug for commoning, which is creative poetic, anti and ante-political, social, and spiritual practicing, which ain't free but mutual, ain't interpretive but mutually read, or red, black, and green. " -Fred Moten
December 9, 2024 at 3:50 PM
davidmdeleon.com
A still from the early 2000s cartoon Futurama, where a menacing alien, Lrrr of Omicron Persei 8, shouts "We will begin with the firemen, then the math teachers, and so on in that fashion." This is his plan for eating all the humans on earth in retaliation for earthlings accidentally eating Omicronian babies as fast food.
December 3, 2024 at 3:31 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Finally got my ears pierced.
Someone with long black hair and red glasses wearing a black blouse in a basement piercing studio. They sport a small gold-ish ear stud.
November 15, 2024 at 3:14 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Just occurred to me that going to see #Beetlejuice tonight means I can dress up like the 90s goth babe of my dreams
Wearing all black with a mesh shirt over a black bra and a gothy skirt, black hair up and curly Sitting down in front of a bookshelf in an all black mesh outfit with red glasses
September 28, 2024 at 5:35 PM
davidmdeleon.com
"Bad Bunny’s new song “Una velita”, released on the eve on the 7th anniversary of Hurricane María, includes a lyric about knocking down the palm tree in which politicians want to hang Puerto Rico.

The palm tree is the symbol of the pro-statehood PNP party."
A post from budpuertorico on Threads: "Bad Bunny’s new song “Una velita”, released on the eve on the 7th anniversary of Hurricane María, includes a lyric about knocking down the palm tree in which politicians want to hang Puertp Rico. The palm tree is the symbol of the pro-statehood PNP party."
September 20, 2024 at 3:08 PM
davidmdeleon.com
I... guess I'm an oldie?

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #268,728!
celebrating 10m users, #268,728
September 18, 2024 at 9:07 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Pick a selfie from your gallery and turn it black and white
A bearded person in a black crop top glowers in bright sunshine overlooking the ocean
September 5, 2024 at 6:30 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Just two enbies out to enbreak shit
Two gender nonconforming people, one in a crop top and the other in a Wu Tang t shirt
June 17, 2024 at 7:55 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Saturday's 90s rock show. We did a Britney cover so I had to wear plaid.
A guitarist in a plaid skirt and sports bra whose meaty calves look a little too masculine
June 10, 2024 at 4:46 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Them: Identity politics and wokeism is driving a wave of isolation among American men!

Also them:
A blue Subaru pickup truck with a giant window sign reading "Less Friends/ More Money"
March 25, 2024 at 6:05 PM
davidmdeleon.com
A scene from Futurama, where the balif informs Judge Whitey that the mental institutions are full since he ruled that being poor is a mental illness
March 16, 2024 at 3:39 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Goin' out dancing on a weeknight
The author takes a bathroom mirror selfie with playful long hair done up with a scrunchie, pink nails, and a Goldfrapp T-shirt
February 22, 2024 at 9:35 PM
davidmdeleon.com
turn a picture from your gallery black and white
A person with long black hair, a dress, a chest hair
February 19, 2024 at 7:14 PM
davidmdeleon.com
this library website is testing me
a screenshot saying: "0 search results for 'Glissant;" "Do you mean croissant?"
December 5, 2023 at 5:55 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Off to teach a poetry workshop
A person with long curly dark hair held up in a scrunchie, wearing a corduroy blazer. They wear earrings and a hamsa.
November 28, 2023 at 8:44 PM
davidmdeleon.com
My (temporary) office has nothing in it but library books. #academicsky
A three-tiered bookshelf in an otherwise sparse office, colorful books displayed face-out. The books are in contemporary poetry and Black studies. A small plush Link figure sits at one end. The picture-taker's shoes are up on the desk in front of them with bright fuscia shoelaces.
November 28, 2023 at 5:22 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Crafting a Halloween outfit which I may or may not even have a chance to wear. Tevs, I love cardboard.
A cardboard sword with gold foil and a white ribbon tied in a bow for the guard.
October 31, 2023 at 5:39 PM
davidmdeleon.com
Glissant and Chamoiseau in 2009, on the election of Obama
Highlighted book text: "It is likely that the society of the United States will get past this stumbling block of racist division (the alternative being an accepted, if not official, fascism), but surely not without losses and tragedies.... violent oppositions among ethnic groups will occur. It seems that, even if Barack Obama's government ends up moving to the right, whether through a natural tendency or a strategic choice, it will not put an end to these upheavals. In any case, the present trend can never be undone: something is operating that has escaped from the Abyss or been fed by the earth."
October 5, 2023 at 5:05 PM