i’m thankful for how this tube light doesn’t flicker even once

these days,
i’m thankful for strange stuff.
i’m thankful for how this tube light doesn’t flicker even once. i can’t sleep in the dark and it hurts me to think about how much you like it. in the dark, you feel bodies are hidden. hiding, you feel, brings with it a different kind of vulnerability. it is how we’re not being looked at and still being seen. being held in absolute darkness is the lullaby no one sang to the children that we were.
this tube light. it doesn’t flicker.
light travels through a straight path.
darkness is twisted.
darkness is twisted. my hands are ugly. they held yours once. my crooked hands holding my broken fate. you. how is your fate treating you? are you okay? are you okay?

these days,
i’m thankful for strange stuff.
i’m thankful for you not being here because there’s no monster under my bed, only on it. there’s only one monster in this room. and, if this tube light goes off, it won’t be hiding anymore. darkness is twisted. and, so are the knots inside my stomach, choking any butterfly that tries to fly if it sees a boy. a boy so bright, he looks like light. light travels through a straight path.
darkness is twisted.
the tube light. it doesn’t flicker.
i’m thankful for how this tube light doesn’t flicker even once.

The difference between looking and seeing something or someone is not something that hasn’t been talked about by anyone earlier. Also, it’s not something that I never thought of, quite the opposite in fact. But, I feel, I thought about it more as I read Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson.