white bread and restlessness

conversation laps at the edges of our consciousness but it never really threatens to engulf us.

we'd all like to write ourselves as the misunderstood hero, the boy who might or the girl who did, to twist our lazy slump into a night watchman biding his time. but the truth is we stay in all week because we spent all our money in Soho, we eat curried chickpeas and we fall asleep in front of Newsnight.

we drown in books and films, and music and radio, and still we have nothing to say,
somedays I look inside my mind and marvel at the wide open spaces,
why is my body so slow that it's all I can do to walk and breathe at the same time,

why

when I say I'm reading Lenin am I nearly always fucking,
when I say I'm writing my magnus opum am I eating white bread and watching mindless television,
all the while wracked with guilt that I'm not reading Lenin?