Who do you write for?

Somebody said, "Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self." So what does that mean for somebody like me who writes for the public, for a living? What it means is that I also write poetry, which nobody much has seen, nor will anyone else ever read. Those poems, some of which were written while I was in high school live in a box that I have carried around with me all these years. The fancy handwriting remains the same, but I can almost tell what I was going through at the particular time by the difference in the tone of the poetry. The top of that box says destroy if you are going through this because I am dead. There is another box that contains my autobiography. On its lid it says, take this one to my agent/publisher. I figure the thrills, intrigue and adventures on those pages cannot hurt the girlfriend of the Mafia don, the murdered Jose Mendendez or the Genius. But I don't want to share the poetic soul of Ruth Adkins Robinson.