Oh, William, you are old

Oh, William, you are old,

Old beyond reckoning, ages, eons, afternoons past and past and worried are you? Are the little girls no longer as fond of you now that your hands are cthonic and your vapid stare shines dimly from beneath the hispid brow of a sweaty-toothed madman?

Uncle no longer, now old Lovecraftian god? Oh, how did it come to pass, you, who were the pride and joy of the Glee Club, who wore your trousers high in the rebellious fashion of youth? How did it come to pass that you became the Man, the dodderer, the Dirty Old one?

They snicker, and is it you? your back they are behind? Or is it just youth, burbling, warbling its senseless breath, its heartbeat of ridicule, and you might as well be the most noticeable in a bin of a thousand turnips on a field of glass.

It is not their disdain that troubles you, is it, William—it is the fact that you share it.

One day, one day, long ago, when your hair shone in the moonlight and your ears were softened by daily applications of ram's butter, on that day you were a god, one to be reckoned with, a scorner of the establishment par excellence. Now, you are a dry powder somehow inexplicably still in man form, hiking up his trousers, combing over his hair, and trimming his ears.

Time robs all beauty, all wanderers, all vagrant lovers at the well of youth. Time is The Great Burglar, and you are its best victim, its booty, its arranged marriage.

Let the petals drop, old man, and fertilize the soil. You died long ago, and only a thin coat of hair spray holds you together. The seeds of your demise are already sprouting up between your toes. Let go, and you may at least fertilize the revolution.

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