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He gave my poems back to me and said,
these are okay, man, but theres a bitterness in them.
Bitterness wont get you anywhere in life.
Okay, I said, thanks.
Its simple, he said, you get out of life what you put
into it,
everybody gets exactly what they deserve, see?
I didnt find that notion particularly
plausible or comforting, but I let him go on.
Lifes a game, he said, you either get rich
or you eat shit and die, its as simple as that.
Id never thought of it in exactly that way,
but I figured he must know something
because he was 29 years old,
edited a magazine
and had a pretty wife and a big house
in Mexico.
I came from nothing, he said,
I used to starve in little rooms for years
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living on tap water and stale bread.
But I worked, man, I worked round the clock
and look at me now, Im gonna blow up real soon.
I wasnt quite sure if blowing up meant
becoming really famous or going on a killing spree
but Im assuming he meant the former.
When I blow up, he continued,
Im not gonna be greedy about it.
I just wanna inspire people
and piss off my haters,
use their energy to fuel my greatness.
Ill be free while they work their shitty
20 dollar an hour jobs for the rest of their lives.
I wanted to ask him about those 20 dollar an hour jobs
and how I might get one, but he went on:
Anyway, he said, poetry isnt the way to go.
It doesnt pay and the only way youll get famous
is if you rap it, you know, hip hop style.
Well, I thought, shit.
Me, he said, I get paid 40 cents a word for writing
bullshit.
Memoirs, restaurant reviews, anything but poetry, man.
You just need to learn how things work!
But dont worry, man, you can make it, too.
WI LLI AM TAYLOR J R. 33
You just have to work hard every day,
and you can make it, too.
Write at least 2000 words every day!
It was four o clock on a Sunday afternoon
and all Id accomplished thus far
was drink four cups of coffee,
fuck around on Facebook and take a bath.
Real writers, he said, they figure out
the way things work and write all day
and all night until they blow up!
I thought about the writers I knew
and I dont think many of them understood
much about the way things worked.
Most of them spent as much time
in bars and jails and nuthouses
as they did writing,
but I guess they werent the real writers
he was talking about.
They didnt get paid 40 cents a word
and I guess most of them would eventually
just end up eating shit and dying.
But they were beautiful in their way.
They had strange light in their eyes
and sometimes said wise and funny things
that stayed with me through the lonely hours.
34
Anyway, he said, Ive wasted enough time with you,
Im gonna go get some real writing done
and if youre smart youll do the same.
Ive often had issues with smart,
and ended up having a beer and another bath
while pondering things a bit.
Thinking about how it all worked
just made me tired, so I took a nap
and when I got up I wrote another poem.
WI LLI AM TAYLOR J R. 35
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