Title: The Price I Paid Poem by ashok jadhav

(The speaker stands alone, pacing slowly, voice heavy with remorse and bitterness. Their hands tremble as if still clutching the consequences of their choices.)
Monologue:
I told myself it was for survival.
Just a small compromise… one step… one concession…
and I would be safe. I would endure.
I would survive.
But survival… survival has a cost, doesn't it?
And I… I paid it in full.
I betrayed everything I swore I would never betray.
My principles. My honor. My own heart.
I looked at them—at the innocent, at the righteous—and I chose… myself.
I chose comfort. I chose gain.
I chose the path that left my soul hollow.
And now… now I live with it.
Every deal, every lie, every hand I shook…
they are chains around my spirit,
reminding me that I am no longer the person I thought I was.
I traded my integrity for something…
and what do I have?
A hollow victory. A fragile security.
And the echo of everything I destroyed…
it haunts me every moment, every breath.
I tell myself I did what I had to do.
I tell myself the world is cruel, and I only survived.
But deep down… deep down, I know the truth.
I survived… but I am not living.
Not truly.
(Pauses, voice dropping to a whisper, trembling with shame.)
The price of gain… of safety… of survival…
is the self I can never reclaim.
(The speaker sinks slowly, head in hands, trapped in the weight of choices that cannot be undone.)