Getting Organized

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…I should probably check my email.

…I wonder what my ex-girlfriend is doing right now.

…I bet my friends from high school make more money than me.

…do they ever worry about money?

…why didn’t I buy a house 3 years ago?

Does that lanyard guy feel like this when he’s writing?

…I should probably know his name [pause to look it up, it’s Billy Collins]

He probably owns a house.

He’s probably never had to worry about money.

That’s why he’s had so much time to devote to writing.

Everything in Billy Collins’s life is probably in perfect order.

I should go out and buy a bamboo desk organizer,

Then I’ll be ready to start writing. 

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Billy Collins Doesn’t Work For Free

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He gets paid to speak.

He gets paid to write.

He gets paid to read his poems.

I should be doing what he does…

Maybe I should have gotten a PhD.  Is it too late?

Why am I doing this?  

Does anyone read anymore?  Society is so…

…everyone is on their phones…

God… have I really turned into this guy?  Embittered by “society” to the point of protesting my anemic notoriety with inarticulate banalities?

What if I made my work more “readable”?

Is Billy Collins “readable”?

Maybe I should write more like him…

…but then I’d be inauthentic…

Isn’t poetry supposed to be authentic and personal?

I should write about life as only I experience it.  Through the intense specificity of my observations, I’ll create something universal…

…I should probably check my email again.

…Maybe If I take a break and watch some YouTube videos I’ll come back with some fresh ideas.

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Billy Collins Does Not Watch YouTube Videos

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He’s from another time.

A time when people read and went to the theatre.

Billy Collins does not break his concentration to watch an episode of television that he’s seen twenty times before.

He’s not imprisoned.

I’m imprisoned by technology like a… 

…Like a…

Well it’s not really a prison per say…

More like a toy that I could just put down, but I don’t…

Whose fault is that?

Billy Collins is probably writing now and I’m watching outtakes from The Office on YouTube.

Alone, insecure; lost in the comforting sound of a familiar joke.