We Live in What’s Left of a Map
They erased our lines, but not our lives
THEY SAY PUTIN IS LAUNCHING his “summer offensive.”
That he’s trying to break our morale.
That he wants a map with just enough red ink to call it a victory.
They’re not wrong.
But what they still don’t understand, and I don’t know how to make them, is that we don’t live by the map anymore.
We live in what’s left.
Like it’s a new chapter in some long and fascinating report, the news says we’re bracing for collapse.
That we might not hold.
And maybe we won’t. Maybe we will.
But I can’t think in maps anymore.
All I know is the sky hasn’t been quiet in days.
And the ground doesn’t even shake anymore when it’s hit.
It just swallows.
Places like Kostyantynivka aren’t a headline to me.
It’s not “a logistics hub.”
It’s a woman who used to sell flowers near the station. A boy who learned to ride his bike down cracked sidewalks.
Families that still boil potatoes while drones crack the air above them.
The world reads about the town like it’s already gone, but we’re still here.
We wake up. We walk.
We hold our breath through the silence between sirens.
And it’s not strategy. It’s not resilience.
It’s just what we do now.
We keep existing.
Even when nobody’s watching.
Even when they say we shouldn’t be able to.
They say Russia is advancing from three sides. That they’ve brought new weapons, new drones, new tactics. Learned from their “mistakes.”
And I want to ask, have they learned how to feel yet?
Because that’s what this war is.
Not just power. Not just tech.
It’s the weight of still being human when everything around you tells you not to be.
I don’t care how many kilometers they take.
I care about the young soldier who held his position for fifty hours without sleep.
About the nurse who still talks to the injured so they don’t die alone.
About the father who sends his daughter a voice message every morning before the signal cuts out again.
They want to break our morale?
They should have done it in the first month.
Because what’s left now, what’s left after all the grief, and ruin, and numbness, isn’t morale.
It’s something else.
It’s the decision to keep going even when hope feels stupid.
Even when you're too tired to cry, but you show up anyway.
We’re not waiting for a miracle.
We’re not chasing glory.
We just want to survive with enough of ourselves intact to say,
I was there.
I stayed human.
I didn’t disappear.
That’s all I’m trying to do with this journal.
Not to convince you of anything.
Just to stay here long enough for someone, somewhere, to remember us.
To remember that while the world counted missiles, we were still counting birthdays.
That while the war machines roared, someone was still writing poetry in the bunker.
That while cities fell, we still believed in love.
Even now.
Even here.
Even if you can’t see it.
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Oh Viktor. So many of us are holding onto you. So many are praying. So many are hoping beyond hope that something will help you and your people and your country. Your beautiful country. My heart aches for you. And also for us here in America. Since of late we have been thrown into the the pool. Whether we end up in the deepest end or not isn't even up to us. Please know I care. ❤️
"...while cities fell, we still believed in love.
Even now.
Even here.
Even if you can’t see it."
An inspiration to so many of us.
Thank you.