She touched my cheek moments before she kissed me.  Or was that after she left me? Such small details have been blurred over the dull drinks of years.  My hands aren’t as steady as they used to be.  Still, they can remember her.  The indent of her shape, her figure.  The smooth softness of her skin.  The trail of tiny bumps left behind in their wake.  

And she looked at me with her brown eyes so large and said “I love you.”

Or did she even speak at all?  I don’t remember; her face said it all.  My vision is clouded, my sight impaired.  Still, my eyes can see her.  Fragile framed, a shivering shadow, locked out in the pouring rain.

“Katarina, come in!” I used to call.  She’d just stand there and shake, as if she never heard me at all.

My brain doesn’t work so well. The moments are slipping past just like the drinks I drained, glass after glass.  Hoping in a vain state that she’d spare some sympathy on this old soul of mine, and come home.  I’d apologize for every night, every wrong, every right.  But mostly for letting her go, without even a goodbye, or a reason why.

She touched my cheek before she kissed me, I know it’s not a dream.  For no sleep vision could inflict as much pain as her.  Oh Katarina, my sweet girl, when will you come back to me?  When will you spare me some sympathy?

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