Dead End

Life’s routine is like a straightaway on a country road
On and on, beyond our sight, it continues
and sometimes looking down that road makes you wonder
if it will ever end
Most of the time you just keep driving
I just keep driving
We
just keep driving
But at some point, one of us will get brave
decide to open the door and jump
whether that means suicide or liberation
– both.
It will be at a crossroads
where the devil
with a smile on his face
waves his red flag to those he deems worthy
One of us will open the car door
abandon
fly free
prove him correct in his assumption
And one of us
will drive on
always looking back
in the rear-view
until the road ends
– dead.
Then is when the realization will come
that we missed a sign way back in the beginning
back when we first turned down this road

Mummified

In this place
of cold air
shifting clouds
and rocks
waiting to roll
underfoot
the grasses
the wildflowers
sway
quietly
mummified –
still present
but empty

And you feel moved
beside the nearly still pond
to pick a reminder for yourself
to pick a papery bouquet
that will then sit silently
in a dry vase
on your bookcase

You pick
a reminder
that it’s so much simpler
to collect
to hold
a bouquet of mummies –
flowers when
they no longer
thirst –
than it is
to watch life leave
than it is to trust
new life
after love is lost

Chris Biles currently lives and works in Washington D.C. where she enjoys playing with the light and the dark, and losing herself in music, anything outside, and some words here and there. Chris was a finalist in the 2022 and 2023 DC Poet Project, was honored by the Monologues and Poetry International Film Festival with an official selection in 2021, and is published in a number of literary magazines, journals, and anthologies in print and online. You can find her at marks-in-the-sand.com / Instagram: @marks.in.the.sand

Photo by Chris Biles.