"Orwell was right, Orwell was right..."

In my twenties I walked mad and discontent

Due to scandals.

I thought there lacked an equal.

My father and I bar-hopped while it felt new,

A pulling force seemed to make us walk inside.

My wife I saw and all my life I waited for her,

My love!  “Suddenly,” I said, “why do you not answer my messages?”

Alas, it's my personality that strikes you down.

Your silence begs for me to talk to you,

Though I did not know my silence would haunt me to this date.

A bright and white lady appeared, a transparent ghost.

Like Molly Pitcher, she helped injured soldiers

From Iraq and Afghanistan while I had no job.

She's an androgynous communist, a Russian-American.

Far from weak and devoid of thought for anyone but me.

I didn’t know how to react to poor service.

The other venue had a waitress who complained

Of the most ridiculous assertions against me, yet--

The police—they heard every shaky voice.

I was paranoid that they would be at my doorstep.

Out of respect for the law I kept quiet and played the idiot role.

I was clad with a moral impetus to visit you,

To make you mine and make you do things you’d never do.

A lady dined across the packed bar, that night, she stood up.

She was a vile, dark demon who walked gracelessly

Towards me who was in fancy to all but you, in fantasy about you!

Meanwhile, Molly Pitcher poured beer at the back.

I, like the waitress, was clothed traditionally.

Her tanned, unique face and agile, light frame—

I did not have her number so I asked and forgot the other.

She didn't have mine either, and I shall never forget:

Her lack of courtesy and rude allegation.

Her allegation was impolite and without material. 

The White Lady who was Molly Pitcher vanished.

I last saw her beneath the counter.

While she left with an ugly man,

Orwell foretold the future that we lived in.

We lived in it.

A deep thought in my anomic head droned endlessly without you.

“Don't worry”, I thought to myself, “I lived in Orwell's book and now,

Surveillance cameras are recording my voice though they belong to me not.

My non-wife welcomed me to a bar without trust or love.”

Trickery and falsery covered her in a delusion. 

She never welcomed me nor fell in love with me.

I learned later she hated me.                                          

The White Lady looked at the cook and then towards me—

The cook stared in a wide-eyed, idiotic way.

My anomic head and my embarrassing self… 

Who never learned from Brother's Karamazov.

But I told myself: 

“When I saw her face, she was not on the same page. 

I was going to be her teacher and we were going to get married.     

When I heard her voice her voice was always music.

That meant everything to me.” 


by Daniel Alexander Apatiga