Socal Suicide
Walking to lunch alone
Talking alone
Picking up the bottle
Picking up the pill
If you don't
It's social suicide

Smiling along
Laughing alone
Makeup your face
Selfie suicide
Is socal Suicide

Fake followers
Unknown callers
No meals
Don't be different
Dont commit

SOCAL SUICIDE!!!

I had heard long, long ago
Of the language of the Eskimo,
Where cars and drywall lack a name,
But snow and snow are not the same.
For, you see, in Eskimo,
There are a thousand words for snow.

By the shore I'm wont to roam,
I see the water as my snow.
From crystal clear to stormy blue,
The ocean holds a thousand hues.
Brackish green and sunset red,
The whitecap thunderous demons bred,
Seductive black on moonless nights
And wind-whipped tops plateau with white.

So maybe I'm an Eskimo,
But too warm-blooded for the snow.

*****, I’m still deft like a leopard;
Repping these streets,
Still chasing da paper
Quick wit the maths,
SoCal’d-rap c u lator
Innovative & faded,
I drink it straight up, no chaser

Backw(ar/oo)ds I’m facing
I’m trippin’ my laces
Inhaling clouds of a thousand lit vapors
Sowing my seeds,
Young man he ain’t got no patience
Be wading my way
Thru a crowd of y'all haters

Insane bro,
How they still don't know my name
Money and fame
I scream while I slang,
It's lame
And I can't move my feet,
my knees are weak
Padlocked to my mafkin’ seat
Yeet YEET

****** around and popped some molly,
U know I be boolin’
Wit a couple of y’all thotties
My Impala’s no ‘Rari
I’m not saying sorry,
***** I got no money
My Mom’s where my house be

I see you sneak dissin’
Just gonna squeeze this in
I’m a heathen and I mean it
~Ope please excuse the dopeness,
I’m just wokest with the flow dontcha know it?
Best have some hands to throw 4sho,
Unless u glow wit it

If I had as much love
As I had **** in my pants,
I’d fill you up at the first glance,
Given the chance
Got u entranced,
We **** when we drance
I’ll show you London,
You show me France yeah

Suicide’s on my mind
Though I can’t seem to find
Motivation inside
I say I wanna try
But I’m wasting my time
Just want some good vibes
Hmu if you find em?

Said I'm havoc wit astounding clout
Blow clouds spit them fractals wow
shifting shapes, him prismatic now
-I’m in another dimension
Guess I never questioned
the consequences
of my pathetic aesthetic

Ya I wear a ****** mask
so you can’t see my pain
Tell me does it resonate,
Does that penetrate your brain?
Man everyday, it straight feel the ****** same
So let’s just vegetate
Now watch me steady levitate
I’m breaking loud,
Falling apart like towers to a plane
Flowers to a flame burning down,
Mayday, mayday
You melt the beams in my heart,
What can I ******’ say?
Catch me diving headfirst in them opposite lanes
Then my mind,
Gets flushed down the ******’ the drain
*****, if you ain’t a succubus
Get the **** up out my gravy train

I smoke big doinks
Gets my mind zoinked
To the point I’m anointed

All about the jinkies
When I'm smoking on that ******,
Take you to the movies,
Tryna feel up them *******
Finna get *****,
I’m no noobie wit a Hoop-D
Shoot my shot up in the *******,
When I hit her wit da roofie

That beat slap harder than a drunk stepfather
When you feeling up his daughter
Got some choppers in the locker,
-Steady mob but I’m a scholar
Now they droppin’ all these dollas
Got the armor to conjure
& conquer the darkest monsters
Hollerin at my partner,
Slobber on my whopper while I stomp em’
Noggin I’m finna clobber
Coldest shoulder on the mountain

My manhood hooked in the crook of ur nook
Y’all wanna tip toe but I don’t pussyfoot,
Wanna throw bows?
Tell ya *** not to look
Vibrate in the ****,
You could say that ***** was shook

Yeah my lines are blurry,
Insufflate blizzards in a fury
Digging where the sewage be
For all these ******* I am luring

Skewering all you limp *****,
Ripe for the barbequing
Cos I been roastin y'all ***,
This **** just ain't ****** new to me

Suckle on my Johnson just to savor the taste
That’s real cheese flavor,
Parmesan off the grate
Got some fries with that shake,
Know those thighs make me quake,
Great Value™ cellulite it’s processed Equate™!

Assassinate you with stealth
God's not gonna save you
When you’re screaming for help
Guns drawn, black lung,
***** I shoot from the belt
Dead-Eye in the sights,
Just need five perfect pelts
Gettin’ litty
Spend $50’s
Pet kitties
**** *******
On this niftier side of ******
while I acquire the wealth

Yo, I smoke a rello
To un-harsh my mellow,
Y’all yellow bellied fellows
Can’t reach my own level

Don’t like my rhymes?
You can fight me
Ignite whilst I smite thee,
From the sky
These bolts come to strike, see
Now I’m magically
Sporadic as lightning

Got Gucci on my zipper -
Throw me a bag, u kno I’ma flip her
Call me Jim Lahey, *****
Cuz’ I am the ******* liquor!
Gonna put on my slippers,
And rock you wit da dripper

In tha cut,
I’m tripping ****
Yuh rolling up that indica

I was 15 years old with trails
of white powder dripping from my nose.
I was 16 and never saw a sober day of my life,
I hid behind bottles of whiskey and ***,
bags of molly, and vials of kitty.
I was 17 and growing tired
of this life.
I was 17 and knew this
wasn’t who I was meant to be.
I was 17 with friends and
a pact to move to California and make
something of ourselves. I was 18
and kicked out of my mothers house.
I was 18 and living with a best friend.
I was 18 and found out they
were doing ****** and ****.
I was 18 and sick of
all the lies so I left.
I moved to Socal where
I surfed couch to couch till I
climbed my way to the Bay area.
I was 19 and lost.
I was 19 and went on a 2 month
road trip with my best friend and a guy who tried to ****** me.
I was 19 and
looking for myself. I made it
to New Orleans and back with only losing myself
more. I was 19 and fell in love
for the first time. I was
20 and met a boy whom I never
sought out to show me how to change myself until he broke my heart for
the very first time. I was
20 years old and let him enter my
tunnel heart   like the yellowbird  he is.
He made it out alive but for a second I didn’t think I would.
I did. I was 20 and
finding myself. I was 20 and getting myself
together after a broken heart.  
I was 20 and I found myself for the first time.
I was 20 and no longer wanted death for my birthday
I am now 21 and fearless.

Maybe it started going down Peasley Canyon Road. I can't recall.
****.
Maybe it started with not giving, or not wanting to.
No matter really, that act was over, the lines were out and the curtain drawn.
It's funny what the mind drags up
on it's own.
Mine drags up things like lost telescopes, looked thru
and cracked plastic leather , that hadn't
yet.
I knew how that man on TV felt who had only months to live, as I had only weeks.
Only two.
So...I gave you my blue apres-ski sweater, too big, a ring I still wear, too big to0 and my love, that I suppose wasn't.
On the plane away it was like a mixer gone crazy inside me...part staying, part going.
Of the part that went along I lost or had it removed with drill parades and dope lectures, fighting fires you can't loose and paper targets.
Very surgically.
Letters to you had phrases like 'smashed psyche' (which I still can't spell) and 'never let go'.
Bunk beds can be fun until they're made of steel and draped with woolen blankets and someone's legs from Alabama.
One of my friends at camp turned me on and I became the barracks Dylan, I'm not sure whether Thomas or Bob.
After a hundred years and eleven weeks it ended
and started.
A nice lady at the airport gave us all the only ****** shot we'd e had in eighteen hundred hours.
I'd called, prior to leaving and you were there at the end of that in-and-out mouth that blows the people out and ***** them back in after the fuel
I'd grown tired of walking up that ramp in my dreams but that time, I left no tracks at all.
A blue dress with ruffles round the neck and those patterned nylons then the rage. I read a few days ago that holding hands feels good even in this day and age.
Send that lady a rose.
Two weeks can last 20 minutes, I know.
Then started the back and forth of school a thousand miles away and painful phone call and Conni ,signed with a circle above the i.We split and mended a couple of times and I read the Harrad Experiment and I got a purple note from Conni and I called to say... I'm not sure what.
Hello...goodbye.
Time went by and so did school.
I remember walking across this field in San Francisco and being depressed by how long it took for fifteen minutes to pass when one considered four years.
I flew home to you that weekend and was duly dropped from school the next.
I asked for some dreamed of tug boat in Puget Sound but got instead a minesweeper in Japan. We'de done the front seat and hurried basement tango and I called Conni to say
well, I'm not sure what.
Hello
Goodbye
Stairs and glass and a clutching you and a sick me.

October 10th, Nineteen Sixty Eight
A hand, a car, a reading, a letter, a truck, a plane, a train and another reading.
I think there were only five or six lines to it but it was enough.
No yo-yos, no pick me up and put me down again...ok?
OK, I love you.
A friend named Green, a hundred talks sometimes with wine, sometimes not. Letters and business calls to you, cycles with no keys and McGaha, Clarence BM1, unit of issue one each, houses and no overnights, Lt. Cris Curtis and no-trouble dissension, the Maharishi and July and you and me and you and me
The Astronauts made it and we did too,  by the gate to the new lake
"A small step for man, a giant leap for mankind."
He was almost right.

June 21st Nineteen Seventy
The shrink never seen and you in Southern California at four in the morning and the Kona Hotel.
Burning ears and imagined heavies sent to intercept us at the infamous glass door.Not the first time but the best time.
Flying home together you gave me the window seat and your hand, all I needed.

November 15th  Nineteen Seventy
Sea-tac Motor Inn, coffee and toast and love.
I'm glad you didn't come down cause Ed was there and he was bad enough at saying goodbye.
Calls to you from Hawaii and Kwajaline and Guam and islands no one ever heard of but fish and me.

T minus 180-179-179-177
ad infinitum
Goodbye Subic Bay, goodbye
Tricks to keep away reality like tapes from home and **** in the old man's coffee cup. Jokes told and re-told till we all re-laughed.
Who ever heard of Sea Detail at 3:30 in the morning?
Me, thank God.
Friend Green was gone from Hawaii too, so I left on the first plane. SoCal again as the news media calls it, two days of debriefing then
out
I can't remember if I took a bus or a cab to the airport nor can I really recall which gate or even if you were there.
I guess I start at the tunnel yelling "OUT, I"M OUT!
I don't know if it started going up Peasley Canyon road or down.

Who am I today?
I'm a seventeen year old boy from England.
I'm a nineteen year old boy in Australia.
I'm a sixteen year old boy from New York.
This cyber love comes at a cost,
a cost sometimes too high.
I lust for too many.
Too many lust for me.
Will this ever come to an end?
I am very afraid of the power i hold.
Truly, I am a fifteen year old girl.
Not necessarily actually.
I am a fifteen year old female to male transgender human.
I'm from sunny little SoCal.
And I am in an endless cycle of lying about who I am,
for cheap cybersex and thrills,
because i'm too afraid people will not love me.
I am a ******, a freak of nature.
I don't belong.
But I can still pretend for a little while that i'm loved.

oh see,
i will take this outlet
[this two pronged outlet
one of you and one of me]
to reply because
i picked up the phone today
and called someone else
thinking
"oh hell i'll warm up a bit
before i dive into this-
i mean, i want to get
my personality right
don't i?
I MEAN DON'T I?!?!?!?
WHO THE HELL AM I ANYMORE?!?!?!?!"
panic set in.
i called my dad.
he's always calming.
we talked about christmas ****.
what he wants. what mom wants.
it calmed me down.
i figured out who i am:
i'm just a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude,
not breaking character til we're done the DVD commentary.
[paraphrased of course cuz I don't plagiarize.]

i'll call you
but how late will you be awake?
i'll call you
but what are you doing right now?
i'll call you
but why am i nervous?
i'll call you
but aren't we all one Being?
i'll call you
but but but but but but burt but but but but but but but but but
don't you have home work
or something better to do
than listen to me preach
and flap flap flap flap
and not hug me again
and not listen to me
or are you listening to me
or am i neurotic
or is it all smoke and mirrors
and seriously i'm coughing uncontrollably
and you'd think i'm crazy
but it's that holiday season
and for the next handful of weeks
i've got a handful of excuses
of why and how and what and how
but burdens only stack up
and i've released literally every single one
except i'm still replaying josh ritter in my head
and the car ride home from that purple chair
and the walk around the duck.

[not stopping for breathing
or trimming my toe nails,
which started growing again.]

and LA and Delaware and pencilwania and where we met on that pier at that show in socal and house of blues and mini golf and lists and names and places and "there's no hell when you die, so don't look so worried."

and i'll call you
but will you answer?

Sonnets and ballads
Same length sentences
And blocky form
Used to describe you
Is like creating the Sistine Chapel
With paint by numbers

You fit no form, no pentameter
And while hips rhymes with lips
And yours are gorgeous
There no rhyme nor reason to Love

Sonnets and ballads are beautiful
In the way any SoCal girl is
Bleached blonds with big *****
Fit the paper definition of beauty
But paper wilts and crumbles
My Woman Stands strong
They can have their silicone, their plastic
Because when we touch, I feel something real

Remember I Love You, I whisper
Like You needed the reminder
But the smile tells me
The words hit home

And as meaningful as words can be
When we’re together
It’s the absence of them that’s beautiful
Lips are for kissing
Touches and caresses
And looks and smiles
Are what tell You
I Love You

Growing up in Torrance—
A suburb of L.A.—
Billy was a SoCal
Dreamer all the way.
He loved sunny beaches
And smooth mountain slopes.
A day without the sunshine
Would always dash his hopes.
Not the greatest student,
He wasn’t good with books.
Luckily, he quickly learned
To get by on his looks.
 
He never went to college;
School was not his style.
Modeling, he thought,
Might be more worthwhile.
Sure, he was good-looking
And knew he could excel.
But like many others,
He didn’t do so well.
Deciding on a path
Requiring looks and charm,
He felt that entertaining ladies
Couldn't cause much harm.
 
(Chorus)
The king of the ******* circuit—
The lord of the nightclub scene—
In New York and California
And places in between
Will walk into a room
And all the people’s eyes
Look in his direction—
Both the ladies’ and the guys’.
Although he’s buff and handsome,
He tends to put on airs.
Despite the six-pack down below,
There’s not a lot upstairs.
 
Being a male stripper
Could get mighty old.
Removing all those clothes,
Doesn’t one get cold?
But Billy loved his lifestyle
And took it on the road.
He even tried “escorting”
Whenever business slowed.
All across the country
You’d hear the ladies scream.
When Billy walked out on the stage,
You could feel the steam.
 
Pumping iron by day
And stripping after dark
To Billy was exciting—
A walk in the park.
It must take some talent
To strip before the lights.
But his knock-out body
Helped him reach the heights.
You wonder, Was he happy?
It’s really hard to tell.
All we know is that for years
He raised a lot of hell.
 
So what does Billy do now?
Ask at clubs and bars.
Some say he sells insurance;
Others say used cars.
Someone said she saw him
Last month near Chapel Hill,
Sitting on a bar stool
At a bar and grill,
Sweet-talkin’ the ladies
And trying to hold fast
To all the vivid memories
Of his glorious past.
 
(Chorus)
The king of the ******* circuit—
The lord of the nightclub scene—
In New York and California
And places in between
Will walk into a room
And all the people’s eyes
Look in his direction—
Both the ladies’ and the guys’.
Although he’s buff and handsome,
He tends to put on airs.
Despite the six-pack down below,
There’s not a lot upstairs.

- by Bob B

I’m sitting on a fume couch with ashtray
legs, counting the khaki strands
in the beaded curtain that dices
the hallway up into barcodes. The table
by the fridge is a cable spool lead-
painted to match the molding. Around
it is a mesh-back lawn chair, a SoCal
fold-out from a SoHo dumpster,
a spill-trayless booster seat,
and a bottle cap barstool. Everyone’s
wearing second-hand sport coats
with seam stitches as loose as telephone
wires tacked up with undersized lapel
pins.

**** Capitalism. **** Disco.
Bathe Avant-Garde. Eat Paint.
Bleed *******. Smoke Local.
Espresso, Or Genocide.
Dresden Was A Lie.
Shrink-Wrap It All.

Everyone is clustered around the cinder-
block stand record player, grooving
to the pops, looking like a rag-tag tide
change beneath the broken-oar ceiling
fan. Everyone’s wearing ironic scarves
tight like corporate ties to keep their throats
from popping ten-cent parasols, loose tobacco,
and *******. Amid their rubber flower talk,
I can pick out San Pelicano, someone critiquing
Keats’ “Politics,” and a rant regarding some
guy downtown’s stab at post-contemporary
Pointillism in some gallery I’ve never heard of.

They’re flipping between topics like a Moleskine notebook
while I skim through a copy of the Onion,
teasing the edges with a lighter I found on the floor.