When I'm Sixty-Four

Getting old.

Living where I do, in New York City, near Columbia University, where there is a constant ebb and flow of youth, makes me think dark thoughts indeed. I start to have covetous rants in my mind, the kind you hear old men make to themselves under their breath in scary movies. Why should they be young, I think, and I be growing old? Why should they have their life ahead of them, and I have mine mostly behind me? I—I who would know how to use their youth to its fullest degree—I should have their youth!

I want your youth, you there, bright savage boy, with your studied insouciance, flip-flops, tousled hair, tattoo, and torn T-shirt. I covet what you have, and I’m going to have it. In the dark of the night I’ll come to your dorm room and threading my way among beer cans, baseball glove, lacrosse stick, assorted balls, X-box, bong, condoms, bottles of booze, female clothing left behind and unopened textbooks, I’ll come to you while you’re sleeping. Then I’ll sink my teeth into your neck, and I’ll suck your blood. I’ll imbibe your youth, drain it from your body. I’ll feel its strength shoot through my own veins, replenishing me.

Then I’ll leave you there, sleeping, with two denture marks on your neck.