Homecoming

Homecoming Good morning Good morning Just waking up Just waking up Left my house keys somewhere on the map Slipped in the back Bags still packed Where everybody at? Zig-Zags and a big bag of shwag I got the Popov And it's about to pop off On the porch, long shorts, loving the sun Got the boombox bumping that bump Got me thinking on them days when we were just running to run Searching for something, and now something's begun And to you, to the crew, what's new on the view We connect like two and two, my peeps through and through I got stories, I got souvenirs And man, yall ain't been through in years Looking at you is just like looking through a mirror Fat hats and slacks, I could never take that back To the life we chose The life that chose us No regrets, no ifs, ands, and no buts Yeah, yeah, make a joyous noise like this Give it up for some real life shit To the couch kids with sofabed dreams Dirty jeans and still thinking over their means And it seems money ain't in our genes So we steam through throwaway schemes With a gleam like you don't know what they seen Nothing happened but adaption Good or bad, action, it's gotta happen Cuz I got something in me and it's gotta get out So either you're running with me or you gotta step out Sometimes I can sit and smoke and drink and drown it out But tonight the voice is shouting and I can't turn it down If I hurt you in the process, I'm apologizing now This ain't shit I talk about out loud No one to blame, how can I complain Just jumped off the train and home looks the same Eses and runaways at the station And seen one cat I recognized from graduation And everywhere I go, it's the same conversation How you been, how you doing, what's the latest Same shit as always, trying to make it Chasing that place in the hills, and millions But this year I'm still here and it appears you're here again Seen my boy behind the counter on some eight bucks an hour Forty of every week for a small pile of powder Seen my other dog, still on that heron Mad holes in his arms, smiling like nothing's wrong At the pad, staring at high ceilings and pipe dreaming Trying to find reasons why we're in these tight squeezes Some blame it on friends, some blame it on no ends And some stand up on their feet and start hustling for theirs Named all the streets eyes closed on my ride home Same spots I stayed posted at since eighth grade Different kids, same lost look on they face And all them girls who you knew would have kids had kids And everybody who you thought would do a bid did And everything I say or do is like deja vu Man I've done it all before Everything at this stage, I've run it through the floor Then I think about that kid who got killed in number four I think about Daoud, and how his own pops popped him Or Rafi, ending his problems with a shotgun So nowadays when somebody asks me "how's things?" I say "more of the same, man, can't complain" To the life we chose The life that chose us It's all good, man, knock on wood To west LA Palms, Culver City To Venice Beach Santa Monica K-Town Rampart Hollywood Crenshaw No starting gun, time to run It's time to run Downtown Long Beach Inglewood West coast All coasts No starting gun, time to run