Which is more important?

[Simatong]

I shrug when people critique my work. Sometimes the insights are flattering, and other times they're scathing. It's sometimes interesting to go from flattered to scathed in a matter of moments. While I admit that sometimes my ego is bruised by the criticism, at the end of the day I just shrug it off. Why? I write the poetry that I feel I should write. I write it the way my heart tells me to. While I would love for my poetry to reach someone's heart, if it doesn't, oh well. Write poetry for any gosh darn reason you see fit. If you want to use cliches, use them. If you want to see poetry as a symbol of life or death or~~heck~~gastrointestinal disease, feel free to do so. It's when the guiding voice within us gets drowned out by all the noise that we become what someone else wants us to be.