Title: The Price Of Allegiance Poem by ashok jadhav

(The speaker stands alone, shoulders slumped but eyes burning with a mix of pride and sorrow. Their voice trembles with emotion, rising and falling with intensity.)
Monologue:
I believed… I believed in something greater than myself.
I believed in honor, in duty, in the flag, in the cause.
I gave everything—time, blood, my youth…
and I told myself it was worth it.
That the sacrifices were noble. That I was doing the right thing.
But now… now I see.
The men I trusted… the leaders I followed…
they used our loyalty like a blade, cutting not only our enemies,
but the very people we swore to protect.
And I… I wonder if it was all for nothing.
Every friend I lost, every life I could not save…
haunts me. Every face, every laugh, every dream…
stolen by the so-called honor I served.
I fought for a country I loved…
and yet it feels as though the country never loved me back.
And still… even with the disillusionment,
even with the bitterness, even with the scars…
I cannot stop feeling it.
Patriotism. The stubborn, painful love of something flawed.
I am torn between pride and regret,
between devotion and despair.
(Pauses, voice softening, almost whispering, eyes distant.)
Perhaps this is the true cost…
to love something so much that it breaks you,
and to keep standing anyway.
(The speaker straightens, hands clenched, eyes blazing with a mixture of loyalty and sorrow, caught forever between pride and disillusionment.)
If you want, I can also write a shorter, more intense version, perfect for auditions, where the speaker conveys all of patriotism, sacrifice, and disillusionment in under two minutes, with rapid, emotional bursts for maximum impact.