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.

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