This poetic America’s Got Talent audition reduced Sofia Vergara to tears.

Brandon Leake, a 27-year-old California native who participated, made history on Tuesday when he performed as the show’s first-ever spoken word artist. The judges were captivated by the new dad’s performance of a touching poem about his late sister, in which he revealed that she died in 1997. Leake told the judges—Howie Mandel, Simon Cowell, and Sofia Vergara—that the performance was a “ode to my sister,” before he started.

When judge Howie Mandel questioned if his sister was watching him perform, he said that she was.

“Oh, she’s backstage?” Mandel inquired.

Leake said, “Kind of.”

Brandon, 27, wrote on ‘the cost of love’ in a poem about his little sister’s loss, stating that he often imagined she was still alive.

He said: ‘Love is the most vulnerable thing one will ever have, and you must learn to hold onto it loosely, so when it leaves, it won’t exit so painfully.

‘If this pain and these memories are all that I got left of you, I won’t never regret these scars from just trying to hold onto you.’

“I’m still haunted by these nightmares ’cause I have a really creative mind, and sometimes it designs these alternate realities where she is still here,” he said.

“Still alive, and all the things I wish we could have done are played again and again and again,” he continued. “I’m tired of playing God ’cause I gotta come to terms with the fact that my sister ain’t never comin’ back.”

Sofia Vergara bonded with a spoken-word poet after he spoke about the death of his sister (Picture: NBC/BACKGRID)

The judges cheered him as he concluded and were plainly taken aback by what they had seen. Mandel spotted Vergara crying and asked why, to which she responded that her brother died the same year as Leake’s sister. Rafael, her elder brother, was assassinated in Colombia, where they grew up.

Brandon’s sorrow was something the actor could identify to, and she said she understood what he was going through. Sofia Vergara added to this by saying that she understands what it’s like to have someone stolen from you without your awareness. Vergara said Brandon’s poetry was “beautiful for her.”

“What an amazing tribute,” said Cowell. “There’s something very, very special about you. This is a very difficult thing for me to judge. I shouldn’t be judging it, I just want to compliment you on what you just did because it was extraordinary.”

Mandel pressed the Golden Buzzer, sending him straight to the live programs, indicating that Leake had left an impression on him.

‘It’s amazing to me that on season 15, it’s the first time that we’re hearing somebody of spoken word,’ Howie said.

‘No music, no nothing—just a raw heart beating in front of us. We feel your pain, we feel your love, and you moved me to do this.’

Vergara said the emotional performance was “a great way to end the night!!!” on Twitter on Tuesday.