When they tell you are a Princess, if you believe them, just nod. Don't bother with false modesty or shiny, splintered pride sprinkled over a healthy dose of humility. Don't worry that they will think you are full of yourself or selfish. Just nod. Smile. And wait.


There will be a day when you suddenly realize the glass slippers that were so comfortable a minute before are beginning to pinch. That the ball gown your fairy godmother had offered to you so kindly is beginning to shrink, exposing your sensitive skin and squeezing your waist down to nothingness. There will come a time when the Prince who's hand you take as you step out of the carriage grasps tighter than before. And when you turn to look him in the eye to ask him why he is holding onto you so tightly you find he has vanished, leaving an empty shell of the boy you thought you had memorized in his place, without so much as a kiss before midnight or a bippity boppity boo. There will come a time when your crown starts to feel heavy, and the mask you used to cover your face as a coy little game at a once harmless masquerade begins to feel like your only chance for survival.


When this happens, remember that Cinderella lied.


The truth is, when you get home and take off your ball gown, when you take off your crown and those horrible shoes, the Prince might not come and find you the next morning. He might not even recognize you without your magic coach or your four white horses. He might see right through you when you look the most like yourself.
The truth is, a dream is not a wish your heart makes. A dream is a plan. Drenched in blood, sweat, and tears, smothered in hope and secrecy, but still there, still present. A dream has nothing to do with wishes. It is a message, a sliver of who you really are, caught in a web of the subconscious and transported to your memories to be treasured for as long as your memories last. Sometimes dreams are the only things we have left, long after wishes have ceased to sparkle and the beauty has faded from the bloom on the rose. And sometimes dreams are so poisonous and addictive that they can be taken like drugs, like a shot in the arm on your worst days to wake you up just long enough so that the crash after the high almost reminds you what it's like to really feel something again, without the crushing numbness you blame on old fairy tales and long-forgotten promises.

The truth is there are no fairy godmothers. When it comes down to it, you make your own decisions, and you take responsibility to them. If you sneak out to that ball, you will wear the glass shoes that rub your feet raw and bloody of your own free will and the crown you've been longing to try on for so long might slip down over your ears. And when the night ends, when the candle blows out and the spell is broken, be prepared to pick up the pieces because by then you might have lost a lot more then your shoe.

But when they tell you that you are a Princess, if you believe them, just nod. There will be plenty of time for self-doubt later. For now, just smile. And wear your crown.