romanticizing the past

while at work, droning through the 9 to 5,
or the 10-12 hour beat down for us unlucky saps
the jaws of the shark come crushing down
bringing waves of pain through remembrance
a place in the past that provides a better feeling
than the current predicament &
so many questions arise, like putting oneself on trial,
where the “who, where, how & why” end up fizzled with
the overall “what” that happened---
here is the warmth of the moments that will not leave,
that one wishes never to erase, all jumbled up in a cruel
conglomerate with those that could be gotten rid of---
or is it that we romanticize the past?
might it be true that the “best of times” which we dwell in,
wading round with, as if in a luxurious jacuzzi,
were in fact not as perfect as we pretend that they were &
since there are no witnesses present to corroborate this new line of
questioning, there is no new evidence to submit---
it is still all hearsay & yet the indictment should be made,
the self looks around at what it truly has become, regardless of
what it thinks happened in the past &
if it is honest with itself, the self wants to press charges---
yes, this criminal, who with sinister shifty eyes walks amongst the
many quarrelling selves within,
has no morals,
has no objective &
seeks only to create fantasy---a fantasy which can prove to be quite
damaging,
given the right extension of time, where the memories that one
believes they have, finally take over---
people clench onto piles of pictures full of groups of people that they will
never see again &
they spend all day on facebook, singles sites & social forums online,
chatting to those that they will never meet,
walking a tightrope between what is supposed to be memory &
what is supposed to be a foundation of present personalities,
coming up completely empty on both accounts,
wishing for a day when things were better &
imagining that they had been, for a place to compare the now,
in which they perpetually wallow---
so what is more frightening?
to believe that things were better in the past & to dwell on them until your mind explodes, because you know you can never go back in time to stay there,
or to believe that things really weren’t that great in the past as you had once thought,
therefore understanding that they never really have been?