Mindless drones, talking
Can't they mind their own business?
Mindless drones, laughing
What's so funny anyways?
Nothing is funny about other people's pain
What's so funny?
What's so funny about the girl in the back of class
Who slits her wrists in her free time
What's so funny about the boy covered in bruises because his father beats him
What's so funny? Mindless drones
What's so funny about the kid who cried during class
What's so funny? Mindless drones
Mindless drones don't understand
They can't understand
They never will understand

I'm not really a poet, but I thought I would attempt one. It's more than fifty words, but I found it hard to squeeze my thoughts into such few words. This is something I see a lot every day so this really means a lot to me. I also did it in a short story form because I wasn't sure which I preferred.

I sat at my desk, trying to drown out the voices of the people around me. The group of people sitting in front of me began to laugh, catching my attention.

Owen passed a note over to his friend, Andre. I caught a glimpse of it. She looks like one of those stupid warriors from Mulan, it read. Andre read the note and laughed loudly before passing it off to Bryan.

The note was referring to a blonde haired girl sitting a few desks away. She always had her hair tied up into a tight bun at the top of her head.

What was so funny about it?

I heard this same thing every day in this class. Owen, Andre, Bryan, and a few others seemed rather cold and heartless to me. They constantly bullied anyone who was different from them. Yet somehow they were the popular kids.

Mindless is what they were to me. They did what society told them or what their leader told them. Simple drones. That's all they were. I tuned out their voices once again and went back to doodling on the margins of my paper.