I am weak.

Not meditatively.

Not mentally or spiritually—or at least I believe.

But in everything else.

In everything that my friends scale me to.

In everything that this world pressures me with.

With each passing second of the sighing celestials…

I am weak.

This porcelain princess of a frame that absurdly houses me….

It cannot be right.

I am so much more 'immense' than this.

Too great a danger to be wrapped up in such wispy blue streamers….

Even the first atomic bomb was laughably large to look at.

But—perhaps it is true what the western superstitioners say….

….the Devil wraps terrible things in pretty packages.

And though I am hardly anything 'pretty', I am certainly petty.

Just yesterday, a single backhanded slap from a thug sent me sprawling to the ground in the middle of a drug sting operation.

Beast Boy had to drag me to safety while Robin furiously beat the ever-living-cholesterol out of the hapless thug.

I suppose that this 'weakness' inherent in me has been magnified all the more in just the past month.

Ever since my father's first entrance into this world… .. ….the burning holocaust of it all.. … …the death, rebirth, and disappearance of Slade.. …. …

The Titans almost lost me. In a way, I pity them that they didn't. And yet, I cannot help but feel a certain… ….'security' in knowing how much they fought to protect me. How much they still fight to protect me. People all too commonly do not know what is loss unto them until experience the loss itself.

I do not know what it is about me that makes the Titans care so much. I do not know what it is that they grab ahold of from the plethora of less than cheerful words I have to rattle off at them when the last thing I ever want to do is 'hang out'. I do not know what makes them smile when I barely give them more than a droning sigh or rolling eyes every second of everyday. I have tried most extensively throughout my temporal existence among my friends to not get along with them and yet…

They are my friends… …. …and I am theirs… …

Above all absurdity in the world is the undeniable fortune I've had to be loved and admired by those I don't understand nearly enough to begin loving them. And everytime I approach the topic, I'm reassured by my friends themselves that they love me… …and that I am a good person….a loveable and respectable, heroic individual.

How is it that they see this? What strength is it that they spy in me that I am utterly lost to? What makes this girl so paradoxically special that they'd risk their inheritance of the entire world to save from the ashes of herself?

I remember… ….

I remember when—on the day the world 'ended'—the Titans took me to the safest spot in the Tower.

And Cyborg…

Cyborg carried me.

That had never happened before. I had never.. …been so weak and helpless before.

But gradually, with each passing second of this 'new lull' before my father strikes again…

I realize….

I realize…….

My friends have been carrying me all along.

And perhaps there is no stronger place to be than in the weakest place to be.

As I continue to be myself.

Only….

I continue to be myself with—affordably—a little more 'grace'.

For being weak teaches me the gentle side of the universe. There is one. I just have to learn after all this time that—in spite of the strain—it's only natural (or necessary) to shove the dark karma bully back.

I have a cyborg, a changeling, an alien, and a caped avenger standing alongside my half of the playground.