Title: The Choice Poem by ashok jadhav

(The speaker stands at a crossroads—figuratively or literally—hands trembling, eyes darting between imagined consequences. Their voice alternates between reasoned calm and rising panic.)
Monologue:
I can't… I cannot decide.
Every path I take… every choice I make…
it comes with a cost.
A cost I may never forgive myself for.
If I speak… if I tell the truth…
innocent people will suffer.
But if I stay silent… if I protect myself…
I am complicit. I am… a liar. A coward.
And how can I live with that? How can I look in the mirror
and see anything but shame staring back at me?
Do you understand?
It's not about right or wrong.
It's not black or white.
Every choice… every damn choice…
is tangled in pain, in loss, in lives ruined.
I wanted to be good. I wanted to do right.
And yet here I am, paralyzed by the knowledge
that no matter what I do…
someone will pay.
And what is justice? What is honor?
Is it truth at any cost?
Or is it mercy, even if it means hiding the truth?
I don't know anymore. I… I don't know what the right thing is.
I am trapped between my conscience and the world,
and every moment I hesitate…
the weight grows heavier, crushing me from the inside.
(Pauses, voice breaking slightly, almost a whisper.)
If I choose wrong… if I fail…
will anyone forgive me?
Or will I live, endlessly, with the knowledge that I betrayed
myself and everyone I swore to protect?
(The speaker sinks slightly, clutching their head, eyes wide with fear and despair, caught in the impossible grip of moral conflict.)