Title: The Weight Of Legends Poem by ashok jadhav

(The speaker stands as if before ruined stone—once a palace, a temple, or a battlefield. Their voice carries the authority of someone who has survived myth.)
Monologue:
They will not remember me as I was.
They will carve me into stone,
polish my doubts into certainty,
and call the result a legend.
History does not love the living—
it loves what can no longer argue back.
I stood where gods were said to walk,
where fate was consulted like law.
Omens burned in the sky,
prophecies whispered by frightened mouths.
But none of them felt the fear in my hands
when choice still mattered.
(Pauses, bitter.)
They say the gods decide all things.
If that is true,
why do they leave us to bleed alone?
Why do heroes age, mourn, regret?
If I am divine in story,
why did I feel so human in truth?
I have worn a crown heavy with destiny,
a sword heavier with consequence.
Every victory demanded a sacrifice,
and every sacrifice was later called necessary.
That is how myth is made—
pain remembered without its screams.
(Softening.)
When they speak my name centuries from now,
they will praise my courage,
not my hesitation.
They will worship my strength,
not the nights I prayed to be ordinary.
But let this moment be mine—
before I am frozen into legend.
I was not a symbol.
I was a person who chose,
who feared,
who loved despite knowing the cost.
If history must turn me into a myth,
let the truth whisper beneath it—
that even heroes are only human
when the story is still unfolding.
(The speaker looks toward an unseen future, knowing they will be remembered, but never fully known.)