Give up writing? (Barber)

How could I give up writing? You might ask
a man to give up breathing, or a hawk
to drop a strip of fillet in your hand
and starve itself. I am compulsion's fiend.
And thought is as an irritating itch
that can't be reached except in pen and ink.
I covet paper. Nothing inside is still
till I empty out my mind and order it.

Ros Barber, from The Marlowe Papers