Teacher booms out over the classroom: Who knows the answer to this question?

The words fall flat on an empty silence.

53 newton-seconds, I think to myself.

But what if I am wrong?

I dare not to raise my hand above the heads of my uninterested fellow students.

Seconds tick by, and still no answer.

Maybe I should speak up.

Teacher is growing impatient. Why be so demanding, when you will only castigate 

an incorrect response?

My fear is irrational;

yet it binds like a gag

and I know that I cannot speak.  I will share in the shame of the classroom;

after all, I am the only one who knows.