WORKLIFE

I carried silence like armor,

while whispers cracked across the floor —

management watching from the shadows,

waiting for a reason

to make me disappear.

But I kept my rhythm steady.

Forklift humming like a war drum,

pipe orders lined like battle formations,

and every pull —

a quiet declaration:

I’m still here.

They called it “discipline,”

but it felt like exile.

Eyes avoided me

like I was a threat

they couldn’t define —

a storm that smiled too calmly,

a worker who moved too fast

to break.

Yet in the hush between shifts,

I saw the truth —

this wasn’t punishment,

it was training.

Divine conditioning

to master restraint,

to fight invisible wars

without drawing my sword.

Now I rise through exhaustion,

no applause, no witnesses —

just faith in motion.

Each sweat drop a prayer,

each breath a testament

to endurance sculpted from fire.

They may not see my worth,

but Heaven keeps the record.

And when I clock out for the last time,

the gates of freedom will hiss open,

metal against light —

and I’ll walk through,

reborn in purpose,

a Public Menace to the Darkness

no system could contain.