The Modern Slave
Before the sun has learned your name,
You rise—calloused hands cupped around yesterday’s bruises,
Shoulders bent beneath another day’s burden,
Each drop of sweat a silent testament of toil.
Your back, a ledger of uncounted hours—
Muscle memories echoing the clang of iron and stone,
Fingers raw as rusted metal,
Yet you dig deeper, mining crumbs of wage for the mouths you feed.
In glass towers far above the dust, they tally profits—suits stitched in silk,
Champagne flutes clinking promises,
Their ledgers fattened on the labor you bleed,
While your pockets hollow with each passing payday.
You haul the weight of worlds on weary feet,
Erecting pillars that prop their empires,
Yet when payday comes, they swivel in leather chairs,
Dividing fortunes that you built with blood and bone.
Still you rise again—heart hammering like the machines—
Dreaming of a day when sweat buys more than pennies,
When the sum of your struggle outshines their dividends,
And the working hand at last holds its rightful worth.
