the good times are killing me

When I was much younger and had only been writing poetry for a couple of years I wrote this poem called "listen." I entered it in a contest in ninth grade to get put in this collection called The Ohio Anthology of Youth Poets. It was chosen to be among hundreds of other dilettantes in the publication. One of the last lines in my poem, a line at which I know cringe miserably, has taken on actual meaning to me. I can't help but believe I originally wrote it for the immature and yet common writerly notion that it sounded very much like something I would read in what was my understanding of "poem."

If these are the best days of our lives,
I want to be listening
to the songs of yesterday.

(the line breaks are what I think they might have been. I don't actually remember)

Even though this is terribly cliched and seems to me like a reinterpretation of something I misheard when eavesdropping on my grandpa and father discussing my dad's childhood and old phonographs it actually popped into my head while listening to the Modest Mouse song "The good times are killing me" and the sentiment seemed to be the same. If this is as good as it gets and I am miserable (which I am not currently miserable, I am actually extremely content and jovial) then I don't want to detach from "the bad times." They musn't have been that bad after all. Perspective is becoming more and more obviously crucial to me. And I am becoming that true perspective can only come from truth. From honesty. Especially honesty with ourselves. Honesty that even a grand, spectacular day doesn't have to the end all and be all. We can hope for better days. And we can be honest with ourselves that the dark days had glimmers of some kind of heavenly light within them. Maybe a song.