The clock struck ten and now it was like Cinderella but in reverse

She’d be coming back, so she didn’t bring her purse

42 eyeballs stared as she left the room

21 brains predicting gloom

Silently she made her way

To the cafeteria to protest on this day

Silence hummed in the crowd

Only murmurs, nothing loud

She made her way and sat down

Her eyes on the clock, her posture as if she were wearing a crown

As seventeen long minutes went by

She breathed in for the ones who could never ask why

Lives ended so suddenly, might as well be her own

This thought shook her to the bone

Seventeen tears trailed down her face

For the seventeen lives silence couldn’t replace

And as she made her way back to the classroom

She felt the predicted gloom

As 42 eyeballs watched her sit down

And 21 brains thought about her frown

While just one

Processed the power of a single gun