Hit A Dead End (A Dramatic Monologue) Poem by ashok jadhav

(The stage is narrow and dark, like a long corridor. At the far end, a solid wall. The speaker stands before it, breath heavy, clothes dusted with the evidence of a long journey. A single light flickers above.)
So—
this is where the road stops.
Not with a warning.
Not with a sign.
But with a wall—
cold, unyielding,
unimpressed by effort.
(He places a hand on the wall.)
I walked toward this place for years.
Every step convinced me
that persistence would open something.
I believed roads existed
because they led somewhere.
I believed movement itself
was proof of progress.
How confidently I marched,
measuring distance, not direction.
(Pause.)
I had maps—
drawn by advice,
colored by ambition,
approved by expectation.
They all promised continuation.
They all whispered, "Keep going."
So I did.
I kept going.
Through exhaustion.
Through doubt.
Through nights when stopping
felt wiser than continuing.
Because quitting, they said,
was the only true failure.
(His voice tightens.)
And now—
here I stand.
At the end of motion.
At the limit of possibility.
A dead end.
Do you know what makes it cruel?
It does not shout.
It does not celebrate your arrival.
It simply exists—
as if it had always been waiting
for you to catch up to it.
(He laughs softly, bitterly.)
I knocked on it at first.
I pushed.
I searched for cracks.
Surely, I thought,
effort must count for something.
But walls do not respond to belief.
They respond only to force
or to wisdom—
and I had neither left.
(Pause. He leans his forehead against the wall.)
This is the moment
no one prepares you for.
Not failure—
failure suggests attempt.
This is finality.
No forward.
No sideways.
Just the humiliating truth
that forward was an illusion.
I asked myself—
Was the road wrong?
Or was I?
(He turns to face the audience.)
We celebrate persistence
like it is a sacred law.
"Never stop."
"Keep pushing."
"Break through."
But no one tells you
that some paths
do not break open.
They only break you.
(His voice softens.)
Standing here,
I feel everything at once—
anger at the time I lost,
grief for the future I rehearsed,
shame for the pride that kept me moving
when I should have been listening.
Because there were signs.
Subtle ones.
A narrowing of possibility.
A silence where answers should have been.
A heaviness that did not lift with effort.
I ignored them—
calling them obstacles
instead of warnings.
(Long pause.)
Hitting a dead end
feels like betrayal.
By fate.
By effort.
By the version of myself
that promised success if I just endured.
But listen—
a dead end is not the same
as a dead life.
(He straightens slightly.)
This wall does not erase
where I have been.
It only refuses
where I was trying to go.
And maybe—
just maybe—
that refusal is information.
What if the end of the road
is not an insult,
but a correction?
What if stopping
is not defeat,
but redirection
disguised as collapse?
(He steps back from the wall.)
I cannot go forward.
That much is true.
But I can turn.
I can rest.
I can choose
not to let this wall
define my worth.
Progress does not always mean advance.
Sometimes it means release.
Sometimes it means walking back
with clearer eyes
than when you rushed ahead.
(A beat.)
I did not fail
because I hit a dead end.
I failed only
if I let it convince me
that I am finished.
(He turns away from the wall.)
This road ends here.
Yes.
But I do not.
*(The light fades as he begins to walk back into the darkness—slowly, deliberately