Invisible poverty

Poverty has a strange way of sneaking in into your life...
Sometimes you see it like floating specks of dust visible in the sunlight, only in your purview for a brief moment of time. You shudder and turn your back.

Then it comes in as a sudden jolt, in unexpected ways, takes you by surprise, like the time in your childhood when you were all dressed and ready to go and asked your mom for the gold chain she made for you, only for her to reply apologetically that it had to be sold... Something breaks in side you and you see that poverty is a cruel thing...deprivation is it's only gift. A wave of shame washes over you.

Poverty also has a side effect, albeit unintentional on its part but it works in your favour ...it gives you ambition...it tells you strive so that poverty never catches hold of you, again...so you try, you do your best, you pray and you live within your means. Hoping, that life rewards you.

You work when others seem to just live carefree, you work when it's too exhausting, you work when it's too difficult to gulp down insults and pretend to ignore the toxic work culture...you have to. You have to, there is no other way...for you remember the difficult days of your childhood and the almost suffocating uncertainty of a stable shelter or a dignified living.

Your work rewards you, albeit for some time...but you forget that poverty is a constant visitor, so when it sees you all assured and relaxed, it pounces on you...when you least expect it.

The invisible hands of poverty moves things around, there is a change in circumstance, and suddenly you are left afloat in the vast ocean of the 'real world'. You are adrift only with a support for a plank, the rest of your fellow passengers are safe on their boats, yachts and cruises. You see them cruise forward. You are all alone, in the middle of an uncertain ocean. Hey! at least you know to swim, someone shouts from a boat far away...and yes, you scold yourself for feeling lost...so you swim, in one direction and then in the opposite, it is exhausting.

You finally find a raft...it is unstable but you are glad, you are exhausted but proud of yourself, for surviving...you make do...you carry on afloat on that raft, wondering if you will survive the next big storm... You have no life plan, you are scared and yet determined, you are isolated...you see others celebrating together on their boats but there is no room for you there ... You are all alone on that raft, poverty as your invisible companion.

Poverty hits you when you least expect it, you look down at the soles of your feet, you see the cracks and suddenly you are reminded of your mother's worn out feet...you see your arms, they are darkened and battered by the sun, just like your father's arms... They too were visited by poverty, they too did their best to host this unwelcomed guest. They did not complain, nor curse it away. They considered it a teacher and fed it patience and empathy. Most of all they thought you to look at poverty with love. So you are patient now and empathetic, to the best of your ability.

You are doing much better than you did, your friends say...some show you pity and some show admiration...you are an alien to them after all...they tell you not to despair and don't compare and yet they tell you, that you have it better.

You know you are treated out of sympathy and patronizing behaviour, for you are dear to your friends but, you know, in a way that a feral cat is to a passerby... You are seen with a lense that makes you less than them in many ways... You are a cautionary tale to your relatives and a lost cause to your peers... 

You know you are visited  by poverty when you start feeling special, for all the worng reasons. While you can afford a roof over your head and can feed yourself, you look around you and see others doing quiet well, much much better than what you can ever be or do. They tell you not to compare and yet say, you have it much better than some...

You know poverty has paid you a visit when you have no means to be where the fun is or be seen in the right crowd. When you have no backup and when you haven't bought something just for your pleasure in the longest of times.

Poverty is deceptive, it does not always come in the form of rags and living on the edges of a city, sometimes it disguises as a struggling human who has enough to cover her own back but in her heart she is scared of what has to come depsite all her efforts, which now she has none left to spare. 

She is living in a castle of cards, dreading the next gust of cold air.