Cover Photo by ChatGPT

Introduction

This is a reflection borne out of the lyric:

“The elephant in the room is that my room is in the elephant.”

from the song Heretic, by Ren:

The Room in the Elephant

The elephant is not in the room.
The room is ribs and breath and skin,
tight-walled, warm with memory.
I sleep in its lungs.
I eat beneath its bowed spine.
I dream in a darkness
shaped by something I never invited
but learned to call home.

There is furniture made from silence,
a clock that ticks in apologies,
a mirror that only shows
what others needed me to be.

Some days I knock on the walls
like a guest in my own grief.
Some days I curl in its belly
and mistake the tremble for safety.

The elephant never forgets.
But I–
I forget how to be
outside of it.