reading room
Work Hard
What does work hard even mean? Hard like fracture. Hard like body bent into profit. Hard like lungs learning to breathe in shifts.
Work becomes worship. Sleep becomes weakness. Silence becomes compliance.
They dress commands as compliments. They sell us endurance like it's dignity when it's just obedience in perfume.
Our hands crack. Their pockets fill.
Our backs curve. Their towers climb.
We trade hours for survival, call it opportunity, and thank the system for letting us exist inside it.
"Hard" is not virtue. It is a leash. A choke chain. A pretty word for slow erosion.
We are not lazy. We are exhausted by design.
And still, we are told: Work. Harder.
— Lilith