Title: What I Never Said Poem by ashok jadhav

(The speaker stands alone, as if finally addressing a truth long avoided. Their voice is controlled, but each word presses against restraint.)
Monologue:
Secrets are not buried.
That is the first lie we tell ourselves.
They live—
in pauses, in half-spoken sentences,
in the careful way we avoid certain rooms of memory.
I carried mine like a second spine—
invisible, but shaping everything.
They believed I was honest.
And I was—
about the things that didn't matter.
Truth is clever that way.
It lets you confess safely,
while guarding the one thing
that could unravel everything.
(Pauses, breath steadying.)
I told myself silence was kindness.
That sparing them the truth
was an act of mercy.
But mercy should not rot in the dark.
What I called protection
was really fear—
fear of losing the life I built on omission.
Now the secret wants air.
It presses against my chest,
heavy with years of restraint.
I understand, at last,
that revelation is not destruction—
it is correction.
(Voice softens.)
I do not expect forgiveness.
I am not asking to be spared the consequences.
I only want the burden to belong
to the truth where it belongs,
not to me alone.
So listen.
What I am about to say
will change how you see me.
It may undo trust,
rewrite memory,
fracture love.
But it will be real.
(A final pause, as if standing on the edge of confession.)
I have lived long enough
with a lie that sounded like peace.
Now I choose the truth,
even if it costs me everything.
(The speaker exhales, ready to speak the secret at last.)