The Poor Are Always the Last to Be Seen

When you have almost nothing, the war still finds something to take

YOU NEVER SEE THEM ON TV.

Not the mother boiling rainwater. Not the father burning books to stay warm.

Not the people who carry this war on their backs, without ever getting a flag.

There is a kind of poverty that doesn’t look dramatic. It just looks like life.

And that’s what makes it so hard to explain to anyone who’s never lived it.

People think of war and imagine chaos, fire, explosions. But in most places I know, the war shows up like this:

There’s still bread, but it doesn’t fill you.

The medicine box is almost empty, and no one knows when the next delivery will be.

The bus hasn’t come in weeks. Not because it broke, but because no one can afford the route anymore.

No one talks about it.

The poor only exist when we’re needed.

When international organizations come knocking on the world’s doors for donations, suddenly we appear. Hungry, wounded, poor. With an image carefully doctored to impress and to punch your stomach.

When a media outlet needs a headline, they show up with cameras, and for one second, our suffering is useful.

Then they vanish. And so do we.

They talk about Ukraine, but they never show us.

They show the leaders. The presidents. The palaces.

No one you ever see on TV speaking about Ukraine or anything else, knows the desperation of eating contaminated food because there was nothing else left.

They talk of strategy and summits and million-dollar plans.

But they do not talk about the pensioner boiling rainwater to wash her hair.

Or the child who stopped growing because nutrition became a memory.

Or the mother who gives up her food for the third night in a row and says she isn’t hungry.

They do not show the vast majority of this country.

The ones who don’t speak English. The ones with no battery, no signal, no voice. The ones who still believe in kindnes but don’t know if it’s ever coming back.

And while I don’t know if these words will ever reach the most needy people, because many times they don’t even know how to read or to interpret a text, I am here covering myself with the coat of the spokesperson for the poor of Ukraine.

The poor of my country.

They say we’re all in the same boat. But we’re not.

Some people are holding buckets.

Others are already underwater.

And I have to be honest. I carry a small guilt inside me.

To be true, it’s not small, but I just try not to think about it, otherwise I would stop right here.

Because even though I come from the working class, even though I’ve walked through this country with the same torn pockets, I can still write.

I can still send my words out into the world. I write in a language that crosses borders.

I have electricity most days. I have a screen that works.

Somehow I have the knowledge to be here, filling your patience with thoughts that don’t always make sense, I know.

And that alone, just that, is already a privilege in my Ukraine.

In a country where even boiling water is uncertain, having a keyboard has become a luxury.

Having a language that the world understands has become a weapon few of us can use.

And I’m scared.

Scared that by speaking, I may make others invisible. That many Ukrainians who also carry the true weight of this war will be left behind in the silence.

Scared that even our suffering now has a filter.

What will be of my Ukraine?

.

How long can we survive on the good intentions of strangers, or stories that never show the full truth?

There are villages that no longer appear on any map. Places where everything has been taken except the habit of waking up.

The habit of enduring. And still they go on.

Not out of resilience, but of routine.

Because no one else is coming.

Because they’re not the story.

But they should be.

I don’t tell you this to ask for pity.

I tell you this because we need to care about what happens when no one is watching.

Not just me. Someone like you.

You’re still reading. That already means more than most things right now.
It means this story didn’t disappear.

We’re the ones who still believe in justice.

In dignity that doesn’t vanish when the cameras turn off.

In a democracy that remembers the people who have nothing left to give.

I don’t know how long I can keep carrying this. But I know I’m not carrying it alone.

And that’s what keeps it alive. Not just in me, but in us.

And yet, it’s their story I’m trying to carry.

My story. The story of the people of Ukraine.

The poor people of my country, just like the poor in yours.

The ones who never make it to the headlines but always carry the weight.

Until when, I don’t know.

But until I can’t anymore,

I’ll keep trying.

🇺🇦

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📖 “The Divine Comedian: Ukraine’s Journey Through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise” is more than my first book: it’s Ukraine, seen from inside the fire, and the hope that refuses to die. Download it for free (PDF & Kindle) and see what survival really looks like.