He lets her see a part of him I have never seen, the part he keeps hidden even from me. He lets her see the dark half of his soul: that unknown place that houses every unuttered story, every half-formed picture in his mind, every spark of light, every shadow.He loves her when she visits him. He curses her when she leaves.

Of course I’ve never seen her. But I imagine she’s tall, pale, and thin. I imagine she’s silent and haughty and beautiful in ways I’ll never be.

When she comes to him, she sits with him in that small corner I have never even set foot on. He sits in his battered chair, bent over the growing pile of paper on his desk while she peers over his shoulder, with a slender hand caressing his neck. I know they sit like this for hours, with her hovering over him, watching him, quietly feeding on his thoughts. She sees the words in their moment of creation. She sees how he agonizes when his hands labor slowly on the keys. She sees him, exultant, when his fingertips dance across the keyboard.

If an angel can be a knife blade at the same time, then she is both. Because sometimes she makes him bleed. I know this too, because I see the pale stains of his blood on the pages he lets me read in the morning.

Maybe he thinks I don’t notice, but I do. I see where he bled. On the stained pages, his words cease to become mere words. I know this. His bitch knows this too. She knows this is why I tolerate her nightly visits, why I never confront him about her, and why I will never ask him to stop seeing her.

I can never make him bleed like she can. I can never make his words live. I can only stand back and watch and wait patiently. And marvel when I see more words staining yet another page.