A little over a year ago, I came out to one of my closest friends. That day marked a new chapter of liberation and freedom in my life. I was finally free of a secret I had no idea existed. As I began to come out to the rest of the people in my life I continued to feel the weight and pressure fall from upon my shoulders. No longer was the door to my identity locked -- it was wide open.

There has been a lot of pain, heartache and suffering in my short twenty two years of life. With all that baggage I had carrying around me my sexuality was something I did not have time to think about. For as long as I could remember I wasn't attracted to any sex. What was important to me was focusing on each bag I had heaved over my shoulder. I had to empty the contents of each bag, examine what was broken inside, and put whatever was broken back together before I could move on to the next. This process is still continuing and many more bags need examination, but with each bag I examine I find pieces of myself that were suffocated inside.

Once I believed I had found the pieces of me that contained the key to unlock the door to my secret, I came out to that friend. That's when my chapter began. I wrote a poem to more accurately depict the arduous journey it took for me to find the key, unlock the door, and face the secret with was buried within.

A Boy Freed

Locked away inside

My pride

Battered and chained, beaten and scorned

The agony and pain was not forewarned

A boy couldn't see with his mind's eye

Couldn't think of the secret

Unbeknownst to him

That he had hidden within

A boy's time was weighing thin

He had scars deep in his skin

He rushed and rushed to try and uncover the truth of his life that longed to be discovered

A boy was too young to remember the first time he was abused by Mother Lover

All he knew was she was gone and he was sent at age seven to the Hateful Father he never knew

A boy was ripped apart by words at home; neglected, unloved, disowned

A boy was laughed at and called names he knew no meaning to . . . . . What was this gay that has followed him all his days?

A boy can't recall the age of that first sexual encounter, nor can he the second, but the third

The third has haunted him forever

You see

These scars kept his secret darkly hidden

He had to first bandage and doctor his wounds before the unknown became known

Not to the world, apparently it got the new first

But to a boy covered in pain

Drowning in sorrow

He had no one to hold onto

No one to cry to

NO ONE

A boy was alone

F R E E

All he wanted was to be free

He conquered one trial to be greeted by the Devil’s demons at the next

Over and over

The devilish cycle never ceased to exist

F R E E

A warrior was born

Out of this pain and torment

All awhile travelling through this war alone

He stood tall

He was victorious

A boy made a vow to himself, when?

A boy doesn’t know

Out of thin air it must have arose

Maybe when he left his mother, maybe when his innocence was stolen by another

Whatever the cause

He made this vow

That he would find his freedom

He would do whatever it took to find himself, he knew himself, but not his true self

A boy kept optimism a friend

and happy came to him at the end

What was this gay that followed him all his days?

A boy never knew the answer

He was confused

At the end of every trial he found himself still empty, still lost

He could never understand why, making him fall more into the pit of demise

There was a day that his eyes

A boy’s eyes

Were opened

and what he saw was what was hidden within him all along

The secret he unconsciously kept hidden from himself, and yet everyone else knew

That was the day he accepted his sexuality as man-man

It was a day where a boy found himself

He found me

I’m a boy no longer locked inside

My pride is no longer battered and chained

Beaten and scorned are no more

The agony and pain no longer hold me unaware

I found my eyes

They discovered, unbeknownst to me,

That I am

A Boy Freed