Somebody yelled out, Hey Stop Drop and Roll! I said, That might save my skin, but it won't save my soul.

I was sitting on a couch somewhere, watching VH1, when I found out that Bruce Springsteen is his mother's only son. I'm my mother's only daughter, and we were both born to run....
I've been feeling stuck for a while. Stuck in my life, in my heart and my mind. I will be quitting smoking, soon. I will be writing more, soon. I will be having more money, soon. Everything is in in the future perfect and it just makes me fucking tense.

I WANT something, man. I want it now, all Veruca Salt and unspecific angsty yearnings and whatnot. I've spent all these sleepless nights trying to put my finger on it, exactly but it wasn't till yesterday when my voice and my will both ran away from me, definitively, for about twelve hours, that I could start to get a feel for what I wanted.

My entire life, my whole life, I've been living like I was on fire. I've gotta run, I've gotta keep it burning. And I've been still. And when you live on fire, you feel yourself crumbling to ash if you don't find your ways to keep it alive. It's this precious force in your soul and I think most people have it. They know they have this thing they have to do. But somehow they drown it. They make it shut up, and although I can completely get that, although I can understand wanting it to stop, wanting to have a life where you can sit and be nothing or everything, or anything to anyone, without it being a big deal; where you can be safe and not have to wonder about what's coming next. Without having to worry about who's burning who. But I can't, I just can't. It's exactly like Kimya sings, like I've written in dozens of other formats, like I feel when I close my eyes and feel the momentum when I'm standing in one spot for too long:
My heart will stop if I put out the fire.

And so I've gotta do it. It's the time of rain and my dogs snoring gently while they snuggle right up against me to keep warm, the time where I'm just in goddamn LOVE with my friends, with their individual faults and personalities. But at the same time, I know there's something inside me that's anxious and wanting and I've gotta start taking care of it, I gotta figure out how to deal with it. So I'm gonna run. Because I've gotta run, and it's gotta be now.

 'Cause you see, I'm  not only my mother's only daughter. In about a week, it'll be sixteen years since the last time I spoke to my father. And my father never ran, you see; he was always forcing himself to stand still, trying to find something inside himself. And that's it, you see. My father left me, forever, when I was a ten year old still too young and unaware to appreciate the gifts he gave me. He gave me half my sense of humor, my love of Ray Bradbury and dozens of illicit episodes of The Simpsons and Married, With Children.... things that happened long after I was supposed to be tucked quiet and safe, asleep in my bed. And in a way that I could never thank him for, when he left me, my dad ensured that I will never be tucked safe and quiet anywhere.

Because safe and quiet are ways of being still. And of all the things my father gave me, his heart is the one I'm most glad, most proud, most overjoyed to have been given. His life and this mind I've got, always searching and wanting have ensured I'll never, ever, ever be still. Because he may have left me, and I can never bring him back; but he'll never be dead, he'll never be gone til I let that fire go out.

And so I swear to God, dad, mom, dogs, friends, everyone who loves me.
I will never be quiet. I will never be still. And I will never put out this fire.