Graduation (Sotsugyou)

by Yutaka Ozaki

in the shade of the school building, on the grass, below the transparent sky
i was experiencing the real and the surreal.
the bell rung so i sat in my usual seat
thinking of what to follow and what not to follow.
my heart is murmering. what i now have
seemed so meaningless, and i was confused.

roaming the streets after school, we are in the wind.
walked on desolate, with solitude in the eye.
in a cafe saturated with laughter and sighs,
we competed for the highest score at the pinball machine
my soul is bored. with a little stimulus
we chatted on exagerating about anything.

oh oh oh oh

i thought "fuck with being good with good manners".
went around breaking school windows at night.
continued to rebel and struggled on. wished to be free quickly.

in the struggles with grownups i couldn't trust,
forgiving one another, what did we understand of each other?
i was fed up but carried on.
one thing i was certain of...
the graduation from this domination!

we would get all excited about somebody's brawl
we all wanted to know how strong we were.
believing ernestly that the power was the only thing necessary
convinced ourselves that to follow was to lose.
we feined strength even to our friends
even if that ended up hurting somebody.

soon everyone fell in love, getting obsessed with
words of love and ideal love.
people say, be calculative in life
but we believed strongly in the straightforwardness of loving someone
what is important?... we were confused in differentiating between love
and what we must do in order to live.

oh oh oh oh

i thought "fuck with being good with good manners".
went around breaking school windows at night.
continued to rebel and struggled on. wished to be free quickly.

in the struggles with grownups i couldn't trust,
forgiving one another, what did we understand of each other?
i was fed up but carried on.
one thing i was certain of...
the graduation from this domination!

what the hell can we understand from graduating?
what will remain, apart from memories?
if everyone is a tied up hapless lamb,
teacher, are you a spokesman for the hapless grownups?
where should our anger be directed at?
what will tie me down from hereafter?
how many more times should i graduate myself
to arrive at the real me?

oh oh oh

without anybody noticing the freedom that is fixed,
our days of struggle are coming to an end.
the graduation from this domination.
the graduation from the struggles.