Escaped Songbird

Escaped songbird
A year of running and now it was all wasted. Covering my tracks, disguises, fake names and changing countries every week it seemed, and all it took was a pause for breath for them to find me. I could not believe my own stupidity.
"No one can run forever." They had told me.
I have tried; God knows I have tried to hide.
Did they think that time had fogged my memory of what had happened? Did they believe that if they showed up I would go back quietly, go back to my life as their caged songbird? How little they knew me.
I refused to forget that night in London where my own manager had attempted to murder me. With a mad gleam in his eye and a thick wooden bat he had staggered towards me and swung. If he couldn't have me, no one could, or so he said.
That night will never fade from my mind.
I had run from the building within an inch of my life, a face that had been plastered on billboards now black and bloody. Could someone like me, who had sold her right to privacy for fortune and fame, ever escape from it? Once the spotlight has been cast on you, you must dance to their music, no matter the tune.
You are not your own, and never again will be.
I know now that for someone like me, there was no fading away. If they had chased me this far, for this long, I could not get away.  
I remember how as I fled from the hotel my manager had run after me. He…laughed at me. "You'll come back," he shouted, "you are lost on your own; you'll come begging for me to take you back."
I had tried so hard to lose myself.
Confidence had kept them one step behind me. They believed that after my pampered life of fame I would run back to them rather than face hardship.
How wrong they were. I had lost my trust in the glittering, starry industry, in the greasy, grinning media and most of all in the people I had depended on for so long. After the headlines had lost interest in the story of a "missing actress, supposed dead" I had realized how fast those who professed their love could forget you. I had seen who truly pulled the strings, the ones that even now insisted that once I sold my soul, there was no getting it back. I knew what went on behind their curtain, and they wouldn't let me get away.
Life itself had become a dance with the devil, putting my king on the table when they always had an ace. Nothing was every good enough to buy myself back. You learn quickly that your opinions no longer mattered, they were masters at playing the game we call "fame". A pawn has no voice, no rights, and no way to disobey his master. Even the King can be tipped with a single finger from the player.
I had tried to put that all behind me, to cut the ties and break free. Today I swore I would not let that go. Don't waste your life; don't throw away all that you have already spent.
As I entered the room, I saw what I hated most.
Through the window I could see TV cameras, black cars with tinted windows, throngs of members of the press with microphones and blinding flashes. Bodyguards that resembled bears ready to snatch me up and restrain "the poor, delusional girl" that had managed to escape their nets until now. My old producer himself stood by the door, his eyes gleaming with his victory.
The moment they caught me, they would make sure I could never run away again.
"You'll come begging me to take you back."
My foot inched towards the door.
Tomorrow they might catch me; tomorrow they might throw me into a thicker, stronger cage and clip my wings so I could never fly again. Tomorrow I might die. Someday, I might be once again forced to dance for them; they might replace my broken strings and make me a new puppet. They would snap their fingers and say "smile".
But that was tomorrow. Today, I would run.
--Amie White