The office hums before the city wakes,

a low vibration through walls and floors,

fluorescent lights spilling pale gold

over gray carpets and chairs worn smooth

by bodies that do not rest,

hands that do not pause,

minds that never stop circling.

Coffee steams in ceramic mugs,

tiny suns in trembling hands,

but the warmth is thin,

scraping over nerves and calendars,

deadlines that stack like bricks

against ribs and collarbones.

You type.

You click.

You answer.

But your fingers are faster than your thoughts,

and your thoughts are faster than the world can follow.

Somewhere between emails and calls,

the office swallows pieces of you—

fragments of quiet, fragments of breath,

until you wonder if anyone notices

that you are here at all.

The hum of the printer is a tide,

rising and falling,

pulling everything into rhythm,

and sometimes it feels like drowning,

except you cannot cry,

you cannot stop,

you cannot slow down enough to let the saltwater out.

Lunch is a rumor, a fleeting shadow of comfort.

A sandwich, cold.

A fruit cup, forgotten.

Outside, the sun touches leaves and skin,

gold glancing off glass towers.

Inside, you inhale that gold in stolen moments,

tiny warmth grazing wrists, cheeks, lungs—

a reminder that light exists,

even when the walls hum back a hollow tune.

The clock ticks.

Always.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Your heartbeat tries to keep pace.

It cannot.

You pause.

You close your eyes.

The fluorescent hum softens into a lullaby.

A lullaby no one else notices,

but it cradles your chest

and lets your mind float for a moment.

An email pings.

Another task, another request.

You want to scream,

but the walls are paper-thin

and the floor is littered with the footprints of expectations.

You swallow.

You type.

You breathe.

Jake laughs somewhere behind a monitor,

and you wonder if his mind is calm,

or if he also battles invisible tides

that no one speaks of.

The office is full of silent storms,

storms folded neatly into smiles,

storms that curl beneath posture and polite conversation,

storms that gnaw at ribs when no one is looking.

By mid-afternoon, the fatigue settles like dust.

Your back aches.

Your head throbs.

Your chest tightens.

The chair feels like a trap.

The fluorescent light is harsh,

a cold sun in a room that never opens to sky.

Yet, sometimes, a glance, a word,

a nod from someone who sees even a fraction of it—

is enough.

Enough to remind you

that mental health is not a seminar,

not a poster on the wall,

not a checkbox to tick.

It is a breath.

It is a pause.

It is an acknowledgment

that the human mind is not a machine,

that hearts are not spreadsheets,

that exhaustion is not weakness.

A meeting drags on.

PowerPoint slides bloom across the screen,

charts, colors, graphs.

Your mind floats elsewhere,

noticing the way sunlight

falls through the blinds,

dust motes dancing like tiny galaxies.

You notice the way the air smells

when someone burns toast in the breakroom,

and you hold onto these small things

like life rafts.

The clock ticks.

Always.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

A heartbeat out of sync.

A body that aches and remembers.

You pause at the photocopier.

You breathe.

You inhale the smell of paper and ink,

a scent oddly comforting, grounding.

By Friday, it is a wave of exhaustion and quiet desperation.

The office feels smaller,

the air thicker,

the hum louder.

Tasks pile.

Deadlines scream.

Your thoughts chase themselves,

turning corners you cannot follow.

Your body wants to collapse,

but your mind reminds you: “Finish. Push. Do. Achieve.”

And yet, amidst this, hope flickers.

In a kind glance.

In a quiet, “I noticed.”

In a breath taken outside,

cold air brushing against cheeks,

hands gripping a warm mug,

your own pulse reminding you

that you are alive,

that you can survive this.

Mental health is not a line item.

It is not a procedure.

It is the pause between pings.

The breath between calls.

The smile that hides a storm.

It is permission to be human

in a place that asks for everything else.

And at the end of the day,

when fluorescent lights dim,

when chairs are pushed under desks,

when the city hums soft beneath the glass,

you realize: you made it through another day.

Your body is tired.

Your mind is frayed.

Your heart is worn.

But you breathed.

You noticed.

You survived.

And maybe tomorrow,

someone will notice,

someone will ask,

someone will pause,

and that pause

will ripple like sunlight through cubicle walls,

reminding everyone that they are human,

that they are enough,

that they are not alone.