What do we forget as we grow up?

We may have forgotten what caused us to feel energized every day. The author of “happy birthday” communicates the declining happiness as people mature by showing a musing speaker who personifies the memories of the childhood. In stanza 4, the speaker “loathe the easiness of [his or her childhood’s] short life.” This may imply that the speaker is already grown up, and the happy memories as a kid is making the current life be so unpalatable that the speaker wants to forget the past. In stanza 5, the personified childhood finally asks the speaker, presumably while crying, "Why are you like this?" However, during the conversation between the childhood, the speaker does not know the reason of having “[bloody] knees and [a] battered face” (stanza 6), and replies “I don’t know.” The speaker perhaps has been too ignoring the inevitable pain in life to forget the source of the pain. When the childhood spots the wounds, the theme that happiness decreases as people grow returns.

In my opinion, the poem was good. Other than what I have mentioned above, there were many other smart techniques. Though it was hard to understand in first few minutes, I think the vagueness was intentional