Title: Where The Armor Ends (Achilles Speaks) Poem by ashok jadhav

(The speaker stands apart from the battlefield, armor loosened, as if the war has briefly released him.)
Monologue:
They call me invincible.
As if that word explains anything.
As if it answers the screams,
or quiets the nights when glory cannot keep me warm.
Yes—steel turns from my skin.
Yes—men fall when I advance.
But no one tells you what it costs
to be born already written into legend.
I was promised a choice:
a long life without a name,
or a short one sung forever.
Tell me—
what kind of freedom is that?
(Bitter smile.)
They praise my rage.
They do not ask where it comes from.
I rage because I know too much—
that every victory brings me closer to an ending
I was never allowed to escape.
I fight not because I love war,
but because war is the only place
where my death makes sense.
Patroclus understood that.
He saw me when the world only saw a weapon.
When he died, something shattered—
not my heart, but the lie
that glory could replace love.
(Voice tightens.)
They will say I was cruel.
They will say I was proud.
They will not say I was afraid—
afraid that without battle,
without blood and song,
I would be nothing more than a man
who never learned how to live.
If this is what it means to be remembered,
then let me say this before I am reduced to myth:
I did not want immortality.
I wanted choice.
I wanted time.
(Quiet, resolute.)
If my name must endure,
let it carry this truth—
that even the greatest heroes
are only human
where the story refuses to look.
(The speaker steps back into the legend, armor closing like fate.)