Throwaway Boy
He walks the streets at midnight,
The shadows are his friend,
He shivers from the cold,
And wishes for the end.
He wonders how he got here,
How life had gone so wrong,
Just a day ago they loved him,
He had a loving home.
His body now feels nothing,
He's numb from the bitter cold,
How could this ever happen.
To someone twelve years old.
What choices have I got?
I have no place to stay?
I really don't understand it,
All I did was say, "I'm gay."
His tears had all but ended,
Decisions must be made.
"Do you think that guy will hurt me?
Do you think he'll really pay?"
Perhaps he'll see I'm hungry,
And keep me all the night.
I hope he's not an angry guy,
The type who likes to fight.
They're children made for hugging.
They're not some human toy.
I wish I'd found him earlier,
He's not a throw away boy.
Throwaway Boy by Ricky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Ricky may be contacted by email here: mytrickybits@gmail.com and the poem may be reproduced freely under the terms of the licence, though it would be really sweet to let him know.
I have reproduced this poem here, not because it was in any way likely to be a part of my life. As a kid I was too scared to run away, and I'd never have been thrown away either. I would have been sent to be cured, instead.
If you have not yet read it, you might like to read about what it was like to discover I was gay at 13 at Epsom College, and also how important, or otherwise, homosexuality was in my growing up.
And you might want to learn something, too.