Poetry Is An Artform

I get it, I do. I was twelve once, too -- passing off Waterloo Sunset lyrics
and lightly-edited, insufferably-immature diary entries
to a tall lanky brunette who was friends with the girl next door.

She said I had talent, but I didn't yet.
She said I should publish them, I should've laughed harder
at that. You see, Poetry is an established artform.
Creative Writing is an established artform. Rhetoric is, you guessed it,
an established artform. This is not just another low-barrier, barely-literate place
to >!vent!< or, worse, >!cry for help.!<

It's okay if you aren't skilled yet. It's okay if you are struggling in a difficult world.
You certainly aren't alone in that, and your own personal shit *can*
be grist for the distillery of an expressive mind. It's just not okay to fail
to grasp the reality that others exist

!and are!<
living their own private lives
without any obligation to care about you
and your every pathetic thought about your often pathetic life.

Start with the assumption that the reader doesn't care.
Then know this...
It is your job >!to make them.!<

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