I've been having trouble sleeping lately. It feels like some secret weapon from some nefarious villain has been dropped deep into the center of my being and ruptured the very thing I've found enjoyment and solace in lately.
Human beings are entitled to sleep. At least in this world they are. But to what extent does the privilege outweigh the right? I'm no addict, but I do tend to spend an awful amount of time in my room. Who am I to be blamed if a bed was placed there?
In the early days of Beast Boy's apprenticeship with the Titans, he was quite the…erm….sleepyhead. Robin, Cyborg, and I soon stopped counting the hours he spent on the couch in feline mode. At first we thought he simply had a problem. It turned out he was just being Beast Boy. And…by our hands at least…he was doomed to change his ways. That doom evoked a stronger person out of him now. At least when he sleeps nowadays, he no longer sheds emerald follicles all over the place.
Starfire's mannerisms are strange, straight down to her biological habits. In proportion to Terran custom, everything about Starfire is upside down, sideways, and inverted. She prefers pillows for her feet or no pillows at all, to the point that the few of us who have witnessed her slumber wonder if perhaps the whole reason for the bed's existence in her room is to acquaint herself with earthling décor while sticking to Tamaranian ways. Who's to know? There was one or two weeks when she 'hibernated'. It worried the living sanity out of Robin and made Beast Boy laugh. She had terrible insomnia when she came to. She was rather…..cute about it.
Cyborg doesn't technically sleep. Rather, he 'recharges' and takes on all manners of habits indicative of a walking battery pack. Unlike the rest of the Titans, Cyborg is never having to be shouted awake or forced to get out of bed. The flipside is a series of awkward moments when Robin is trying to do research with the Titans Computer and Cyborg is waltzing around between the kitchen and the entertainment system with bundles of wires strapped to his person. The arguments ensuing from such an egotistical crossover are stressing to say the least. It's fortunate to admit that they have frequented less and less with later days.
As for Robin, there is hardly anything to complain about. In essence, he's more capable of overworking than letting sleep get the best of him. Which leads me to wonder as of present if he is more capable of relating to me now than anyone else. And then I must remind myself that Robin's restlessness is a self-actualized obsession. A sort of diligence that wires his brain into the long-reaching hours of darkness so that he can never truly be at rest. It's both admirable and pitiful…but at the same time very much unlike my own 'predicament'.
Which raises an epiphany. A rather stupid reexamination, really. I am…as always…my own foil. And perhaps the reason for my insomnia is simply that I support the illusion of sleep depravity in my head like a thick, infernal sponge. And the cavities are duly soaked with thoughts best reserved for the dark tabula rasas of meditation or the warming touch of daylight. Thoughts that I have achieved that which I most sought to accomplish in my life.
I am surrounded by friends. And yet, I am bleakly and utterly alone. It is something similar to Rousseau's vision. People are born free, and yet they are in chains. The things that move them to better themselves is exactly what causes their lapse in happiness or liberation to begin with.
Only, it is so much more heavy for me. I know for a fact that I was not born free. The chains that I bear are tied in with my soul indistinguishably. And the very thing that keeps me from traversing loosely from this dark domain of my self is the fact that the very distant friends that 'surround' me all live and breathe in blatantly mortal shells that I would never…ever…contemplate risking if even for the last pulsing bloodstream of my being.
I am at the brink of something I always anticipated—but honestly never looked forward to. I am on the brink of the noble experiment. Lying alone in this room that echoes my thoughts like whispers to shadow, I accept the fate that I have chosen. A life of solitude and soul-self imprisonment. A girl in a bottle. These restless thoughts, growing and surmounting, must always be mine and mine alone. Balanced and held secure in the center of my solace. Locked away for fear that the sparks they breed for me might ignite something drier and more vulnerable in the hearts and minds of my closest companions. And I'll know for a fact as I witness it first hand with each passing day that distance is something the voice makes moreso than the arms. And as much as Starfire may hug me or Cyborg shove me or Robin salute me or Beast Boy run circles around me, I shall always keep this fear and this restlessness to myself.
In hopes that somewhere in the chaos of this ruptured mind, the friction will make a warm pocket. And in that silent crevice I will cuddle my aching body in and drift away. Sleeping these cold years into oblivion.