So here I am sane by David Floyd

I am a council-sponsored professional discharging my duty to make positive small talk and change the subject

And as we sit on the bench and watch you spreadeagled on the grass in a strangely coloured woolly hat Steve remembers he will be in Brazil this time next month and I think back to all the times I've been singled out as a lunatic

The time when I fidgeted so much the hairdresser thought I was "a bit funny"

At school when I made crazy faces to hide my insecurity and the little kids called me "mental"

When I ran away from the yappy little dog and Brendan said I had a fur allergy

There are too many to mention but they never sent me here to this demented corner of Tottenham where agency social workers go to die

What have mad people done to deserve this? Why do all those right-headed people who've subjected us to world wars, starvation and mind-numbing TV dramas starring Ross Kemp get to live in comfort in Highgate and hold lengthy discussions on the meaning of modern art?

Surely they should be the ones condemned to spend their nights in a desperately normal excuse for a bedroom next to a traumatised soldier who shrieks in Greek and pretends to slit his throat

You say you've read the papers and the end of the world is coming soon I say it isn't it is only Wednesday and here I am sane

http://www.robertpeake.com/tag/highgate-poets