I proclaim myself as a strong individual,
Someone who has battled long and hard to be standing here today.
You all see a boy with a strange personality,
Quirky and fun.
but I see a boy with scars- inside and out.
I see a boy who has lived a rough life, one not to remember.
A novel where the chapters seem to get longer and longer,
and I’m just sitting here; typing away.
I see a boy who has been ravished left and right,
Being held down by strings and torment.
Touched by the cold-bitter hands,
Taught that my lifestyle is against Will,
Treated like a grain of sand caught under life's shoe.
I see a boy who has fought back from rubble,
to escape from the rumors and voices that were placed in my “narrow” head
Shadowed under alcohol, knives, and inner-depression,
Chased under the slanders of "You’re not good enough."
Then those who speak, “It'll get better.”
I see a boy who is confused about what his true intentions are,
Being marked as different, being marked as the same.
I see a boy who is confused, who walks the halls and runs miles,
with a fake smile and a pumped up chest.
Just like the man who took advantage of me.
Just like the man who follows me till this day.
I see a boy who stands here today with these battled scars,
who just tries over and over again,
but can never get fulfillment with this audience
With these people I call my friends.
I see a boy who is tired.
A boy who is bruised, shamed, constricted and marbleized
Into what you may ask?
This boy has no idea himself.

I scurry to the bathroom, shutting the door of the uncleaned world behind me and I just stare in the mirror.
I see myself, but not only myself, but what I have become.
I see blood and tears shattering down to the purist of sinks.
I have become Sweeney Todd, a man forsaking his lost world.
A man who doesn't even see himself anymore.
It just comes to show how much this cruel world can change someone, making them think that there’s No Place Like London. Their own creation of their own world.
Here with a mask, portraying what I have become; this man.
A man who kills for passion and with love and with no scarce for bleeding over the white dove.
A man who is mistaken by a fellow Judge, a bias judge who has ruled his final destiny, my final destiny.
I see myself becoming more lost, slowly slitting my throat by this man with white hair; dead bodies filling up the floor. I’m losing control.
Just like The Worst Pies in London, I’m disgusting, I am revolting; like an unsold bottle of elixir.
I have been tossed and used and if I dare take one step out of place I will be beaten.
People expect so much from me and I've tried my best to be worthy in their presence just like
my childhood, nothing but a blurred line, controlled by an egotistic, vile Italian wanna-be.
I've grown into a killer.
Not only on myself, but those who even dare to care for me.
I stare in the mirror with a forbidden soul I call my wasteland, my graveyard, my sewer; this man, this man has shown me the ways of disgrace and having an unloved life.
I scream in horror as this blade takes control of my new life.
Am I evolving into something I have wanted? Or am I following the footsteps just like the customers did when they lined for their funeral?
I glance at the puddle of blood I have created and wonder if this is the life for me.
I take a taste of what is yet to come of this new life and all I can do wait.
Wait Down By the Sea for this man to become, this man who lives this life of Sweeney Todd; the man of my creation, me.
I stare in the mirror struggling to open that closed door, wondering and thinking what it’s like out there, out there in the real world and question myself, is it the world for me?

Imagine a wonderful place,
No war, no violence, no pain.
Happy, right?
Now imagine me,
Standing in the middle of this ravished style,
Naked.
Black, darkened clouds above my weary head.
Shadowing my vulnerability towards every rain drop.
Each containing acid,
Every droplet destroying my inner innocence.
Every slytherin slander from thy mouth hitting my skin.
It burns,
Just like your homophobic slurs.
It continues to downpour,
I’m nothing much but bones.
Staring up into your so-call perfect world,
The world that you imagine for me.
Your blissful eyes battering at the cloud you have created,
The cloud I cannot get rid of.
The cloud that has melted me,
That melted that love I HAD for you.
Your stylish grace can’t uphold your remarks you have on me.
I’m sorry I can’t be your perfect world,
I’m sorry I can’t be your perfect son, grandson, cousin, brother, or uncle.
My body is trying so hard to take control of this tsunami,
Trying my best to keep my skull lifted high,
but there’s the acid,
sweeping into my exposed bones.
As you see it,
There shouldn’t be anything left but a scarred body.
And that’s how you left it.

Was it me who did something wrong?
Or was it your thundering slurs
or you lightning expressions
that left me this rubble?

No mother,
I can’t be your perfect flower,
All I can be is this beautiful rainbow you have left behind.

It’s not that I’m too proud to be gay;
It’s how I justify to myself that I’m not afraid.
It’s not that I shove my lifestyle in anyone’s face,
I want to show everyone that they can have their own voice;
One that can show the world we are not going to back down from smite and shame.
We continue to subject our society to judgmental and slanderous words, words that are taught to us from books, magazines and our elders.
Not once do we think about the consequences or effects when one speaks with an open mouth.
Before we go out trying to profess the “truth,” we should take a walk down that judged road.
It is a road filled with pain, agony and shame.
Before we act,
Imagine the life of someone who identifies as something other than heterosexual.
If we can learn how to understand people other than just labeling them, Take away the judgmental and complex lifestyle we’re trapped in and try to create a society more accepting and civil.
If we believe that everyone is unique in their own way,
Why should we label them in a category in which we’re afraid.
As a whole, we are scared of change,
The change of lifestyle that’s getting more support every day.
It take us back to where we first started,
“Let us be free. Let’s have a nation different from all the others. One that can make a change to not only itself, but to open the eyes of the rest of the world.”
I’m not gay because I chose this passage;
I’m gay because I was born to have voice.
A voice that can speak for the silenced.
A voice that can change words on a paper, and even thoughts for nations.