We have all heard the word “faggot” being used as an insult
And whether or not that comment is directed towards me does not matter
It would still feel like you wrote that word on a knife
And plunged it through my heart,
Which in your eyes wouldn’t matter since I’m incapable of love anyway.

It would still feel like my equal writes are wet sand
I’m trying to hold on but they keep sleeping away
And I’m squeezing harder and harder
Because it’s so hard to be gentle,
But that just makes them fall to the ground faster

I wish my fear and frustration could be let out with a calm disposition,
So that it would not be greeted with arguments stating that
“Straight people have problems too.” Because I already know that
But they do not have to be afraid of the things I am afraid of

Because in most places I can’t marry
In some I would be imprisoned
And in another the government would kill me
If not one of my own classmates
And do not tell me it will never happen.
Lawrence King, Matthew Shepard, Sakia Gunn, Julio Rivera, and so many others can no longer speak for themselves. I will try to speak for them.

The kind of hate you must have to take a life
Cannot be evaporated by the sun of support groups and school assemblies
That kind of hate has been beaten into the heads of children by their parents
Painted across your picket sign
And sung out like a song I do not see the appeal in
Maybe the idea of love has turned into an idea of hate.

My love is illegal and I do not accept that
Things become a concern of the law if they are wrong.
Love is not wrong, but you have made it seem like it is
I do not have the security of her hand in mine

Because the stares from my peers
Kept me from holding her hand
The fear of people knowing
Did not keep me from saying “I love you”
But made me hate myself for meaning it.