Reflections on a couch

I remember him sleeping on my couch, curled up like a broken bird, his breath fine and soft against the red cushions. Candles burned low, Leonard Cohen sang Goodbye Marianne. I stared. I wanted to hold him in my hand, that thin body, those spindly legs. I don't know how long I looked at him as I folded myself in the club chair. I know I'd never looked at him that long before. I could never meet his eyes. His eyes stared through everything, including me. They pushed himself in the places that only shame and sunlight could reach. He drew out the sacred and profane in me and in that moment I realized he did not love me.

I wasn't his partner, I wasn't even his lover; I was an archetype, THE archetype…the darkness that allowed his light to shine. He was Saint Michael, flaming sword, prince of all the angels.

I wonder what that made me.