Once upon a time, there was a prince born in the city of lights. Raised by women, whose large framed-figures kept him warm during the cold winter months, and blocked out anything that was not light. They raised this prince behind glass walls and transparent shields, in an attempt to guard him from seeing the evils of the world. They had hoped to protect him from the evil getting too close to the little boy prince and tarnishing his beauty.

From where he stood, the lights were beautiful, they bounced prisms off of the glass windows that protected him, allowing his imagination to grow fiercely and his creative insights to mature. As he grew up, the world became an image that he felt was so close, but he was not able to touch, to actually be a part of.

When he was of age, he began to walk the streets of his childhood, now released from the protection of the women who use to shield him from the cold, the glass windows and transparent shields that protected him from the outside world. Or was the world being protected from him, he had thought. When it was time for him to leave and be free to wander the earth for experiences, the women who raised him spoke of stories of other princes who went on the same journey never to return or be spoken of again. He used their stories as comfort for those cold nights that he never experienced. He allowed those lingering kisses to be the glass that shielded him from pain and hurt in the new world. He was ready to begin his journey.

Once free, he now was able to learn on his own. Of course, this adventure was full of colors and shades of realities that differed drastically from his childhood and from those experienced by the people he would meet on the streets of the world outside of the glass. No one was there to guard him from the world. He was now a part of the world.

As a prince, he believed that he was in someway better than the lay people and those he had heard were pure evil, not of his fabric. He realized that this was not true. In fact, he felt at times that he was less than these people. Somehow inadequate because of the way he was raised. He began to believe that the glass did not protect him. The glass actually hindered him from actually of growing and learning anything of this world. As he continued on his journey he began to think that he was somehow inadequate, not as strong as he once believed he was. The words that he used as protection did not seem to be strong enough for the gusty winds of this new world.

He continued to walk on for more experiences and to meet more of these people, once thought of as evil, now seen as his only guides in this life. He never wanted to reveal to anyone that he was a true prince. He even began thinking that maybe the women that raised him made the whole concept up in order to protect him from what he would find out about boys who looked like him. In this world, boys who looked like him were littering the streets, not beautifying. They were hanging out with opaque bottles in each hand, smoke creeping from their black lips. Hanging out on street corners, listening to other stories of people who were not protected as children, actually exposed to the evils of the world, he began to see more. He learned the most from these people. These people became his people.

As time passed, he began to remember the women who raised him and recognized that maybe the stories they told him were true. Maybe they told him this so that when he left he would be able to remember who he was and not be tainted by the world. As if the glass was a symbolic representation of the way he would have to live. To able to see the world and reflect, but not have the world penetrate him and make him believe he was nothing. He began teaching the lessons he learned as a child to the people he met. They taught their lessons to him as well. As he continued to grow, he noticed that his friends were growing too. He told himself that he would never forget that he was indeed a prince, but so too were the people that he would meet and learn from. All of us are from different villages, learned of different lessons, but somewhere behind the glass, we are all similar.