Remembering

Tell me,
Do people change?
Or does your memory betray you?
Are these machinations in your head false?
Ruby-tinted glasses in hindsight?

You recall them with fondness,
Angelic,
Sagacious in the extreme,
Beautiful and everything sweet under the sun,
Almost folkloric in their virtues,

But then witness them in the present,
Drugs and drink and crime,
Ugliness in their actions,
Selfishness to the core,
As if the past was a disguise,

It’s curious to remember people as they were,
Rather than the forms they take presently,
Are they mirages in the mind?
Or do people change?
Tell me.