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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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Daily Cascade #1101666 added November 15, 2025 at 1:47pm
Restrictions: None
Those Elephants in Our Rooms!
Prompt:
The elephant in the room: (a topic that everybody is thinking about but nobody is talking about.)
Let this metaphor inspire your entry today.
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At the initial reading of this prompt, the first words that came to my mind were: discomfort of the truth.
Truth, that giant creature, impossible to miss, standing quietly in a corner, large, heavy, and unavoidable, while we the people pretend it isn't there. It this weren't so tragic, it could be funny. Why are we so silly? This question comes to my mind.
Come to think of it, it could just be because we like to arrange conversations the way we arrange furniture. We are, in fact, masters in emotional choreography. Anything goes as long as we keep the room harmonious. Well, some truths do not fit into such a decor. They are the elephants, too awkward, too painful, and mostly too charged with unknown consequences.
To start with, they are the mistakes and subjects no one wants to acknowledge or claim responsibility for. Those could be a failing marriage or relationship, a family secret, a future loss, or even a wayward offspring. Elephants for sure! We have such elephants because we are human; because we are hopeful, fearful, sensitive, and also, protective.
Often, getting rid of such elephants means naming the problem. This, naming it, feels awkward and can even be riskier than living with it. Talking about the truth may mean a negative atmosphere, ending a relationship, forcing a difficult decision, or making a hidden hurt visible. Dangerous, isn't it! Silence about such stuff, on the other hand, offers an illusion of control. But only an illusion!
Then, let's face it. Not many of us are that daring to face difficult truths, most of the time. So we hope that this huge elephant will perhaps not move at all or maybe it will shrink or will wander away out, on its own. Surely, it never does.
Yet, such elephants can disappear or go out the door on their own, once their truth is acknowledged. When someone, who is brave and gentle, finally speaks the truth, the room itself moves with unease, at first. Then, light gets in, and breathing becomes easier.
Then, with courage and willingness, we can face the thing we least want to see.
Just maybe, no matter the consequence, getting rid of such elephants will happen then.
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