The Elephant in the room does not wait.

Photo by Paolo Bendandi on Unsplash.

First, a sob story in the form of a poem

~Tacenda~

A thousand words have been spoken,

Yet none speaks of what’s in plain sight.

Every word hangs above in distant air

In a zigzag dance, avoiding the truth.

Every now and then,

Words flutter down to earth

Only grazing the surface, shy of depth

Afraid to confront the elephant’s weight

Perhaps honesty’s late, or waiting in vain

For courage to arrive to find its voice.

The unspoken weight presses on every one of us.

In a room full of many words

It seems there’s heavy silence that none can ignore.

Perhaps things are better left unsaid

Perhaps the elephant ties the room together...

We all watched closely as the elephant tried to force its way through the door. It was a baby elephant, barely two days old. At that moment, a debate was born: should we let it in or turn it away?

After hours of constant and unending back and forth, the majority won the vote, and the young elephant was allowed in. So we worked for hours, rebuilding the doorway for its bulk to fit in leisurely. It was a little room, no, scratch that, a tiny room, but we didn’t care. We let the elephant in. It was just a day-old elephant. There’d of course be enough room for it — we said. Anyone watching us must have thought us mad, but that’s irrelevant. Why? Because they’re not allowed to judge until an elephant comes knocking on their door, too.

No one wants to admit why the majority allowed the elephant in, but I will. We let that elephant in because we hoped it would take up so much space that we’d go unnoticed. We hoped it would hide the holes in our clothes. I hoped it would hide the fact that my shoes had huge holes, that the sole of one was completely gone. We let that elephant in because we each hoped that everyone else would be too busy gawking at something bigger than us, anything other than our tiny but not so tiny problems.

Funny, isn’t it? But remember, never judge until an elephant comes knocking on your door, darling.

The moment the elephant came in, it started to grow, but we didn’t notice. We were all too focused on guessing or hoping that everyone else would be focused on the elephant in the room. But now I realize that none of us actually paid attention to the elephant after we let it in. We were too focused on the temporary bliss of thinking we’d successfully drawn attention away from ourselves. But it was short-lived. It didn’t take long for it to be replaced with the same fear that made us let it in.

What if the holes in our problems were still noticed, even with the elephant in the room? What if they had already noticed before the elephant even arrived? Our heart rates rose simultaneously. A few of us mastered the act of ignoring the holes in our clothes and the elephant in the room. But not all of us had that skill, and we could never truly learn it.

We noticed this about each other. But what we didn’t notice was what was unfolding right in front of us: something far stranger, far more unsettling.

The elephant was growing. Only a few hours had passed, yet it had grown significantly.

I know we all noticed it eventually, even if some of us acted like we didn’t. And I know what you’re thinking, we should have gotten out of the room or found a way to get the elephant out before its weight crushed us. But we didn’t. Instead, we stayed put, eyes fixed on the still-growing elephant. Yet, our feet remained unyielding refusing to move.

You see, we couldn’t move. We wouldn’t move.

Why should we?

How could we?

Why would we?

We didn’t realize it at the time, but we all shared the same thought.

What if I head for the door, and I’m the only one who does?

They’ll all notice the holes in my clothes, the bald patches on my head, the foul stench that will rise from my pits.

It’ll draw too much attention to my unresolved issues, sparking conversations I’d rather avoid.

That’s what we all thought.

So we didn’t move.

Strange things had been happening since the elephant came in. The windows had disappeared, and soon, we were running out of oxygen. The only way out was the door. But still, no one headed towards the door.

We stayed still as the elephant; our elephant grew bigger and bigger and bigger until we were all pressed against the wall.

As its weight crushed and killed us all, we shared the same final thought.

We had believed the elephant would come in and wait, that it wouldn’t grow.

But how foolish we were.

Because as you must have realized by now, my darling, the elephant in the room does not wait; it only grows larger.

Maybe if I had faced my insecurities a little earlier or told Tolu that I didn’t think we should be together anymore, I wouldn’t have been in the room with an elephant that crushed me to death.

But remember, don’t judge until an elephant comes knocking on your door, too.