Title: The Throne Of Shadows Poem by ashok jadhav

(The speaker stands alone, perhaps behind a desk or at a podium, voice heavy with fatigue and isolation. Their gaze drifts, as if seeing the weight of every decision they've made.)
Monologue:
Do you think they see me?
Do they think the crown, the office, the title… makes this life enviable?
They see the power. The authority.
But they do not see the nights I cannot sleep,
haunted by the faces of those I could not save.
They do not see the choices I had to make…
and the ones I had to live with.
Leadership… power…
they say it is a privilege.
They say it is a gift.
But they never tell you about the cost.
The loneliness. The constant, suffocating weight of knowing
that every decision, every word, every action…
can destroy lives, can destroy worlds…
and it is all on you.
I am surrounded by advisors, by allies, by sycophants…
and yet… I am utterly, completely alone.
No one can share this burden.
No one can tell me I am right. No one can absolve me when I am wrong.
The applause fades, the faces blur, the crown…
it becomes a chain, a cage, a reminder
that no one else can feel what I feel…
that no one else truly understands.
And still… I endure.
Because leadership demands endurance.
Because power demands sacrifice.
And because, in the end… someone must bear the weight,
even if it crushes them in silence.
(The speaker sinks slightly, hands gripping the edge of a desk or railing, eyes distant, staring into the invisible consequences of their own authority.)