Low, When the Stars Call...
I heard
the stars calling me one night.
But
I could not listen.
The
world had taken me by storm, and there was too much to do to entertain it.
It was
not that I was unaware of the honor bestowed on me—for that the heavens would
cry me forth was not something to be taken lightly. But eyes of a lesser plane watched me, and I delighted
in easy fulfillment. Though I could feel
them borrow into my skin and take ownership of my very being, it gave me no pause,
for who so entranced could break free?
There
would be other times, I thought. Perhaps
a host of them. I was young—I had energy
to burn. There was no need, yet,
to break with my audience.
Time
passed, as is its wont: slowly and all at once.
I began
to feel the gazes set upon my flesh, no longer gentle caresses, but piercing,
sharp stabs of agony. I felt a haunting
need, so foreign I could not say from which it came, to feed others’ visions,
to let them have the whole of me. I
scratched and scraped to meet expectation, dulling every thinking part so that
I might grow numb.
It
seemed but that I blinked, and found I had lost all my will.
It was
in this broken despair that I felt the stars call again. Their lights shined, beckoning in the
darkness. All at once, I found the
strength to make the choice.
I
answered the call.
Up, up I
went—the weight of a thousand burdens slipping from my shoulders—to dance among
the stars.
The eyes
are far away now. Their vision does not
grip me, nor do I feel a pull to entertain them. I am all myself again. I am free.