They would make fun of you. Small braids and small shoes and sad eyes and they would make fun of you like the merciless, blind eels they were. Blind they were, their eyes gouged with gold pins the day their sins caught up with them. And they used the smiles they once had and your smiles to wipe up their black, oily blood. Their parents would kill them if they stained the linoleum. So they knotted their shoe laces each day and put on their faces and they ridiculed you. Little did they know that you were beyond them. You were beyond those petty, dark-winged creatures. You were whole and young and innocent.

Something grew inside you that day, though. Festering mold of cynicism that clings to your every thought like a disease. Corrupting, rotting disease that steals away the hope of the world. It was your weapon, your protection, your shield and lance. It paired with the philosopher inside you; new lovers and twisting limbs making themselves known, making slow introductions in the darkest recesses of your heart. And so you developed your wit-another weapon, this time forged with steel and iron; stronger.

I will warn you that one day you will wake up to find your shield cracked. It is a cruel betrayal, a backstabbing of our own hearts. Piece by piece it will fall away and you will find yourself without. There will be fear, striking, halting fear that will eat you up inside like a parasite. But those people you have met along the way. The ones who have lost their wings and gold pins and have found sight through you; they will stand next to you. I will stand next to you. And all those people you meet along the way, all the people you will never meet; all those people you have met and have never met, they will give you their shield.