I want to be held.
I want to be warm...safe...secure...
I want to be...happy...
I am that dark girl that Cyborg fights to understand and Beast Boy loves to tease.
I am that spoil sport that Starfire tries to cheer up and Robin tries to motivate.
I am a mystery and a relic and a curse...and I know far too much about myself to keep on existing without an inevitable weight of guilt.
But that does not mean that I lack the desire to desire...
To be selfish.
To want that which everyone wants.
In the darkness of the secluded corners that I afford myself, I dream.
Selfishly, I dream...
Call them what you want...
...Prince Charming fantasies...
... ...Home sick musings...
... ... ...Daydreams of a livelier existence...
... ... ... ...I dream, and I dream often.
I dream--not in expectation of receiving that which is beyond my eternal reach--but for the sake of dreaming itself.
More and more these nights, lying alone under the covers...
I imagine that I am not alone.
Somebody...anybody and nobody...
Somebody is holding me.
Somebody is driving all of my fears away...weathering all of my withheld sobs...lulling all my unlaughed muses...
I know that emotions are dangerous for me.
I know that trying to live a normal life is absurd, for my father's grasp on me is absolute.
And fateful.
But I also know that I am alive.
Every day that I fight crime alongside my teammates.
Every moment my heart beats the adrenaline tempo of a mad pursuit or a brush with death...
I know that I live.
And it horrifies me.
And...it's not that I seek an escape from that which is inescapable...
But I seek solace...for sanity's sake.
I can meditate to perfect my powers.
I can center myself and keep control over my emotions.
I can do everything that the Book of Azar teaches me in order to preserve what little integrity my soul self contains in this universe.
But at least...
For all that is left to be sacred...
I can warm myself.
I can warm myself with the mere temptation of what it must be to live warmly.
The temptation to reach out and someday truly have someone who could hold me.
And protect me.
And purge me of my agonies.
I know that will never happen.
I know everything that will tke place...And everything that I have feared that will only come painfully true...
But most of all, I know what I cannot be allowed...
And to fantasize...To produce a thought that is at least one-fourth the substance of the real, blood-beating thing...
A girl like me--I think--can pretend.
And hold onto that which is warming solely for the absurd notion of itself...
Yes...
She can pretend...