Well ... it isn't "light"

There simply must be an explanation forthcoming. Mustn't there? 

Or would it really matter if we knew? Would it change anything?

Are we an experiment of some vastly supreme being? Or a play thing? Sustenance? Hosts?

Utterly undetected, they sidle up beside us and take us unaware. It isn't difficult to imagine these creatures into existence. They are everywhere ... always - a mere disturbance in the air that seeps into our flesh, nesting inside our soul - gorging on our emotion. 

Some take us gently.

The benevolent iteration leads us to our own spiritual nourishment. They guide us through our life long education and teach us how to survive. They thrive on our confidence, wisdom, generosity of spirit and love. They sustain their existence with our overflow, never taking more than they give. Drawn to the positivity we put forth in our world, they flock to us when we are bursting with happiness, goodwill and joy. 

Some, however, stalk us like prey. Preferring the meaty, sickeningly sweet smell of disparity to the clean, crisp taste of symbiosis. 

These needful things must elicit our pain, our sadness, our apathy and most gratifying of all - our fear, to slake their thirst. They coax our naughty inner selves out to play ... wreaking havoc on our lives and (if luck is with them) the lives of others ... further whetting their voracious appetites.

With the efficiency of an assembly line, they whip our ego and temper into a froth. Stealing our focus and dispatching us on fruitless witch hunts. Our choices become rash, our morality becomes lean ... soon, we are caught in a spiral of poor decisions and inevitably we wind up debilitated by fear and dissolution.

In response to the sudden trauma, we generate a defensive field that signals a feeding frenzy. Before we realize what is happening, we're swarmed by sharp teeth and tearing claws. They slip inside - through our mouth and nose and eyes ... filling our ears with malevolent voices and choking off our breath with despair.

The easiest chance for escaping the succubus is to submit; play dead ... go limp ... staunch the flow of emotion. Anything to escape the powerful jaws of our captors before being consumed, whole and alive. 

To spare us the agonizing, slow digestive process that will ensue, we wantonly run into the welcoming arms of yet another beast - equally sharp of tooth, with an endless appetite and inexorable grip. Drugs ... booze ... food ... sex – the vice is moot ... the need for escape is tantamount.

But the guilt, the fear ... they remain.

Worn thin by the relentless predatory pursuit of our own customized design, carrying the stench of a fresh kill, we are hunted in our dreams and into our wakeful hours ... further and further we sink into the abyss. Steeping in self pity so thick, it clogs our pores - sad sacks of failure. Becoming so certain of our doom, we fulfill our own prophecy. 

For our spirit to survive, it is imperative we react in ways that are entirely foreign to our thought process. Fabricating positivity from the deep dark well - in spite of certain annihilation of our spirit ... actively, relentlessly, unconditionally - choose happiness. Again and again ... until it sticks.

The antidote is the antithesis: Dogmatism in the face of overwhelming negativity. 

We must choose.

We must find our way clear to attract the positives of this life or be doomed to the jaws of our foe. An incomprehensible feat for the strongest heart, but diminished by our struggle ... the simple truth is that it is easier to succumb to the whim of our demons than to continue the fight. 

...and so many succumb. 

The very cry for existential validation nothing more than a dinner bell for the wicked abstract.