Three springs, same gate, different days
Uniform sleeves in a soft pink haze
Bags on our shoulders, shoes on the street
Laughing too loud with the wind at our feet
One friend runs ahead, one turns back
Someone takes photos, somebody laughs
Petals get caught in our hair, on our coats
One lands inside the page of my notes
Three years felt long when I lived every day
Tests, missed trains, little fights on the way
Lunch on the stairs, late talks after class
Things that felt endless were learning to pass
Now the school gate looks smaller somehow
And all of us know what we couldn't know then:
This walk through the blossoms, shoulder to shoulder
Will never happen exactly like this again
Sakura falls, soft and slow
Pink in the air, then gone where it goes
Three years pass in the time of a breath
But what really happened doesn't disappear
We were here
We laughed here
Petals flew through our hair
The moment ends
The memory doesn't
That's how a second becomes forever
I remember the rush when the final bell rang
Chairs scraping back, every hallway alive
Plans changing fast at the front of the gate
""Where are we going?""
""I don't care, just wait.""
Cheap drinks, shared fries, phones nearly dead
Stories we swore we'd remember instead
Someone had a crush, someone cried, someone lied
Someone said
""Next year we'll all be the same.""
We weren't
That's okay
People move cities, numbers stop ringing
Names get quieter, seasons keep spinning
But I still see us under that sky
Running through petals like time couldn't find us
Maybe youth isn't precious because it can stay
Maybe it's precious because it can't
A flower opens, a flower lets go
And for one bright afternoon that's enough
Sakura falls, soft and slow
Pink in the air, then gone where it goes
Three years pass in the time of a breath
But what really happened doesn't disappear
We were here
We laughed here
Petals flew through our hair
The moment ends
The memory doesn't
That's how a second becomes forever
One petal turns in the afternoon wind
For a second
I'm seventeen again
Same friends
Same street
Same impossible pink sky
Gone now
Still mine
Sakura