I love you as I do my work,

with the same perplexed vexation.

You disappoint yet I embrace you both

With the lovelorn's foolish passion.

You both reflect only what I have given

And I have not enough to give.

You can not sate me, nothing can,

I want the world in payment for my scribbles

and inexhaustible bliss from you.

When I am with you, or with my work,

my mind is alive, my spirit aglow

And I know something better than happiness,

Something I know only I can know.

When away from you, or from my desk,

The world intrudes, reality suggests

I waste my time,

Neither you nor it deserve my adoration.

For what have I gained from such devotion?

My work is feeble and you are flawed.

and I am filled with disquiet and a loser's pain.

Yet I return to you both, with aching heart,

eager to lose myself again.