Apathy as apposed to Empathy

I am the type of person who apologizes when I’ve realized I’m wrong and do have to say when I said I had apathy and understanding in my poem Pickle in a Jar, I meant Empathy and have since changed the word. Although I apologize for getting the word wrong, It was said in the poem with the meaning Empathy, I still stand by the argument that the comment from anonymous was a silly one for saying I need to choose my words carefully as people read my poems to learn English. But I know now I was wrong in the word I wrote, but meant another.