It goes by many names, the space invader, the infiltrator, the head fuck, to name a few. Arrives unannounced and unexpected, taking residence in your comfort zone, droning on incessantly with negative speak, the stuff that hurts your head, while you hover uncomfortably in your own space, out-of-place. Welcome overstayed when none has been offered, sapping strength as the clock ticks and panic builds because you have things to do, life to live, but you can’t turf it out because you don’t know how, and you’re not that strong anyway. So the invasion prolongs  and it grows darker and your brain grows numb with the pointlessness of it all, and your chest hurts, and your stomach feels hollow; but finally it grows tired of your boring, catatonic company and you brace your exhaustion against the portal through which it slithers away; the portal that opens ever so slightly to let the light in. Sighs of exhaled pressure leave your chest and you swear that you’ll be ready the next time, braced and protected; but that’s all just fuckery thinking, and well you know it, for it will be there when you are not looking, when your guard is down; when you are content – or think that you are. It will come again alright, but you just hope that it won’t be for a long while yet.