Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay

This is my response to Day 1 of the PrideOnThePage challenge Day 1: NAME

✨Begin with a word they once called you—and let it unravel into truth.✨ What names have shaped your identity—those you were given, those you chose, and those you’ve had to shed?

Names can feel like mirrors or fences. We inherit them, resist them, rewrite them. Some we carry like armor, others like wounds. And some become a doorway into self-definition. Today’s prompt invites you to reflect on the language you’ve been marked by—whether spoken in love or in dismissal—and to trace the truth inside it.

They gave me names. Many. Some arrived with cruelty. Others carried roles and expectations I never agreed to. One of them followed me straight out of a children’s story—Jolanta, a pig, recited with ridicule. It stuck to the walls of classrooms, to the underside of my skin.

The name I was given at birth was Judith. I accepted its formality early on. I refused the shortened version. Judy belonged to a chimpanzee on television, and I refused to be laughed at like that. I insisted on Judith. Fully spoken. Carefully carried. I tried to give it weight. It never offered rest.

Judith means “woman of Judea.” A figure from scripture. A liberator. She walked into enemy territory and returned with her head high, her blade sharp. I recognize her refusal, her clarity, her directness. Those traits live in me. The name still never fit.

German arrived with my earliest words. A language designed to structure behavior. Spoken in commands. Rooted in systems. Difference had a place there, and it was usually fenced in. I learned early on how to present myself in ways that made others comfortable. I was rarely welcomed without explanation. Even my name stood out—Judith, too Jewish-sounding for a Protestant postwar family.

In 2021, I realized I am nonbinary. The understanding arrived in a single millisecond—clear, whole, undeniable. At that exact moment, I became Jay. No process. No adjustment. No unfolding. Four weeks later, I changed my name and gender officially. My papers caught up with what my body already knew. Jay had always been there, waiting.

For most of my life, I lived inside a name that never belonged to me, spoken through a language that misnamed me, shaped by a gender that was never mine. I braced constantly. Against the calling of words. Against the eyes that insisted on seeing someone I never agreed to be. I don’t remember ever feeling completely safe. Not in my body. Not in my breath. Not even in my sleep.

That spring in 2021, something shifted. Over eight months, I lost thirty-five kilos—seventy pounds—without effort, strategy, diet or intention. Nothing changed in what I consumed. Everything changed in how I was held. For a short period of time in my life so far I had entered environments where I no longer had to defend my existence. In that reduced pandemic lockdown society people met me with coherence instead of correction. My fascia released. My posture changed. My breath moved through. The weight had always offered protection. Safety made it irrelevant.

This was safety—the condition, the feeling. And through that safety, for the first time, I experienced something like belonging. Not as an idea. It was a sensation. Belonging entered through the reduction of vigilance. Through the rhythm of breath uninterrupted. Through rooms that let me arrive without shrinking. My body understood before my mind did.

Jay holds all of that and names the shift from endurance to presence. From there, something quieter takes root in the canyon I am. That name marks the moment I became inhabitable to myself.

Jay arrived the moment I told the truth out loud. This name holds everything I could never carry inside Judith. This name never asked me to split myself. Jay is where my breath expands, where I belong.

Belonging

Belonging is the deep sense of being accepted, included, and valued by others or within a group. It is the feeling that we have a rightful place in a community, relationship, or environment, and that our presence matters. Belonging is fundamental to human well-being, as it nurtures connection, safety, and self-worth.

Buddhist interpretation: In Buddhist teachings, belonging is closely related to the concept of Sangha—the spiritual community. The Sangha is one of the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) in which practitioners take refuge. The Sangha provides support, encouragement, and a sense of shared purpose on the path to awakening. The Buddha emphasized the importance of spiritual friendship (kalyāṇa-mittatā) as essential for progress on the path, as found in the Upaddha Sutta (SN 45.2), where the Buddha declares, “Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life.”

Self-reflection

Where in your life do you feel a true sense of belonging, and what helps create that feeling for you?

Affirmation: I Am the Safety I Seek

I am the safety I seek. With each breath, I remind myself that my feelings—whether they are fear, sadness, or uncertainty—are welcome here. I honor my emotions as natural parts of my human experience, knowing that I do not need to change or hide them to be safe. Instead of turning away from discomfort, I choose to stay present with myself, offering understanding and compassion to every part of me. I am learning that true safety is not found outside of me, but is something I create within, by accepting myself just as I am. I trust my ability to hold space for my own vulnerability, and in doing so, I become my own sanctuary. No matter what arises, I am here for myself—steady, gentle, and whole.

Conclusion

Some names were survival. Others, a kind of silence.

Jay belongs to me without effort.

It isn’t armor. It’s home. A name that no longer presses against my chest. It moves with me, steady and attuned. It doesn’t hold me in place, and I don’t hold it too tightly.

The echoes are still here. I brace more often than I’d like. And even so, this name meets me there—in the tension, in the practice, in the ongoing becoming. It asks nothing. It stays.I am still becoming. Still softening into what safety feels like, not just what it promises. Still discovering where belonging lives in my body, not only where it’s spoken of.

And here—today—I remain.

jay as canyon breathes

Thank you for waking this path with me.

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Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you.

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🎙️ We Rise to Remain – A Spoken Anthem for the Margins

Have you ever known a space not built for you? A structure, a language, a collective narrative that simply couldn’t contain the intricate landscape of your being?

In this episode, released for German Diversity Day 2025, I invite you into the story behind We Rise to Remain—a poetic anthem shaped by resistance, art, rhythm, and survival.

Spoken in my voice and lived experience, this is more than a performance. It’s a reclamation.

Rooted in Germany but spoken in English, this piece bridges identity, erasure, queerness, disability, neurodivergence, and class. It names the systems that tried to erase us—and honors the ones who refused to disappear.

Each letter of W.E. R.I.S.E. T.O. R.E.M.A.I.N. marks a domain of injustice—and the defiant heartbeat of those still standing. This is not a single narrative. It is a landscape of interwoven truths.

This episode is for:

Everyone who’s been told they’re too much or not enough

The misnamed, the misgendered, the erased

The artists, the survivors, the ones who remain

Listeners seeking rhythm, beauty, and unapologetic truth in a time of rollback and resistance

This isn’t about palatable diversity.This is about radical wholeness.

🔗 Explore the full art & poetry zine and accompanying visuals at:https://wlplookout2create.substack.com/p/we-are-not-broken-poetry

Featuring the shortened version of the musical anthem We Rise To Remain:🎶 We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain. 🎶Full Text

Have you ever known a space not built for you? A structure, a language, a collective narrative that simply cannot contain the intricate landscape of your being? I know this feeling in the deepest valleys of my existence.

I was born into a world where my very existence was often met with quiet dismissal, suspicion, or full-throated denial. I live in Germany. I write in English. I exist in the space between categories—non-binary, neurodivergent, queer, chronically ill, living with disability. And at the same time, I carry privilege: education, citizenship, linguistic access. That paradox, that friction between visibility and erasure, safety and danger, is where this essay finds its breath. 

As Germany pauses to mark Diversity Day, asking, Was verbindet uns?—"What connects us?"—I do not offer a neat, tidy answer. My response is a different kind of offering. I give you a song. 

"We Rise to Remain" is not just a celebratory anthem. It is, for me, a deeply personal map. It charts the terrain of what it means to be deliberately excluded, to be cast to the edges, and yet, to stubbornly continue living. It speaks the names of the systems that would diminish us. It speaks the names of the survivors who persist. It speaks my name.

Each letter of W.E. R.I.S.E. T.O. R.E.M.A.I.N. names a domain of discrimination and survival. Each verse honors a different population—each one I've either belonged to or stood beside. The anthem isn’t a list. It’s a landscape.

This is not about representation. This is about reclamation.

We live in a world where corporations perform a dance of "diversity" in their marketing materials, all while their internal policies quietly, definitively, betray the very people they claim to include. Governments speak in grand pronouncements of "democracy," yet simultaneously construct structures that erase the lives and histories of those who do not fit their narrow definitions. And those of us who find our homes at the margins are often told, with a subtle dismissiveness, that we are "asking for too much"—when, in the profound simplicity of it all, what we are truly asking for is our undeniable humanity.

And so, this anthem became a necessity. It was not born from a whimsical desire to write a song. It emerged because the very systems that sought to contain and diminish demanded a response. And I found myself with no other choice but to answer, not in their language of control, but in the elemental language of rhythm, of unwavering resistance, and of the profound return to myself.

Each letter in “WE RISE TO REMAIN” became a pillar—an offering and an invocation.

Not acronyms in the traditional sense, more embodied signposts. Each one marks a chapter of struggle and survival, a facet of identity too often fragmented or erased. What follows is not a single story, but a gathering of truths—interwoven, irreducible.

W – Women / Womanhood: Unfurling from the Confines

They spoke of being smaller, softer. I was raised among women disciplined by expectation, erased by silence. Gender, as I understood it, was discipline. Erasure adorned in floral print, woven into daily life. It manifested in the wage gap's ache, in medical gaslighting, in power avoiding your gaze unless seeking complicity in silence.

This verse is not just reflection on women; it is a piercing look into patriarchy. A meditation on how it intertwines with capitalism, reducing human worth to output. How aging femme identities are erased, while young ones exploited. Our bodies are never neutral terrain—always sites of control.

This is not about comfortable inclusion within broken systems. This is about gathering courage to burn down what harms us and, from fertile ashes, building something fundamentally better.

E – Earth / Ethnicities / Elders: Grounded in Deep Time

I observed how land is treated as object, a resource. How ancestors, rivers of life, are dismissed as burdens. How languages, rich with history, and lineages, essence of identity, are deemed expendable. Our origins are not slogans; they are living memory, residing in quiet knowing of the body, subtle accents, forgotten recipes.

This verse holds grief and reverence. Grief for stolen land, unspoken names, dismissed wisdom. It speaks against colonial extraction, the whitening of history. It speaks for Indigenous memory. Diasporic survival. Climate truth.

What connects us? The solid land. The powerful stories. The loving presence of ancestors. And the breathtaking world that will, in its own time, outlive us all.

R – Religion / Refugees / Rejected by Cultures: Seeking Sanctuary

I remember being pushed from sacred spaces. Not for lack of faith, but for wrong shape, wrong love, wrong questions. I saw others cast from homes, severed from families, exiled from theologies—not for lacking belief, but because authentic belief proved inconvenient.

This verse speaks to spiritual exile. It illuminates doctrine weaponized, dogma supplanting compassion. It reveals religion twisted to justify cruelty, borders sacrosanct, humanity lost. It names nationalism as perverse theology, white supremacy as distorted gospel, the trauma of being unwanted.

But it also sings of sanctuary. In exile’s desolate landscape, we find each other, building new altars from shattered pasts.

I – Identity: The Uncontainable Becoming

No form could hold me. Every box, every categorization, felt like a betrayal of my expansive truth. I spent years translating myself into checkmarks, knowing the cost of honesty. Knowing complexity makes you vulnerable. Fluidity often framed as a threat to rigid order.

This verse is a bold refusal of simplification. A hymn for every non-binary, intersex, questioning, fluid, expansive human told they are "too much" or "not enough."

We are not fringe elements. We are the very fabric of existence, weaving new patterns, adding vibrant threads to humanity.

S – Survivors: The Sacred Roar of Persistence

Some experiences I survived have no name in polite conversation. They exist in hushed spaces, shadows of amnesia. I broke silences to reclaim my breath, affirm existence. I am not alone, particularly having lived over 50 years feeling a corrupt self.

This verse is not soft. Not about neat "closure." It is, fiercely, about justice. About truth. About carrying stories no one wants to hear—and speaking them anyway. It names systems protecting abusers, cultures rewarding silence, the burden of shame never ours to carry.

This is survival. And survival, in its raw insistence, is sacred.

E – Economy / Exploitation: The Pulse of Undervalued Life

I saw what capitalism does to people. Watched friends ration medication, skip meals, push bodies to collapse, all for "productivity." Felt the ache of not being "productive enough," punished for being human.

This verse speaks to labor's realities. To class. To systemic violence valuing people solely by production. It names poverty not accident, but deliberate policy. It demands fundamental reimagining of priorities.

We are not assets. Not mere overhead. We are the pulse, the creative force, the reason anything exists.

T – Territories / Tongues / Traditions: Reclaiming Echoes of Home

I speak English, a language I discovered as a vital tool. I lost others through displacement, fear, silence. My body carries traditions I am just remembering, like ancestral whispers.

This verse is for those cut off from roots, forced to translate their being to survive. It names linguistic erasure, cultural cleansing, statelessness. It holds sacred space for return, the slow journey back to ourselves.

To reclaim the sacred, here, is not just spiritual. It is political, a reassertion of autonomy and belonging.

O – Others / Overlooked: The Brilliance of Difference

I was told, with deficiency in tone, that I am "too much." Too sensitive. Too erratic. And, contradictorily, "not enough." Not stable enough. Not "normal" enough.

This verse fiercely embraces those society writes off. It speaks to how ableism is baked into our lives—from job applications to architectural blueprints, to public discourse's silence.

We are not problems to be solved. We are people. Our minds are not broken. They are, in their unique workings, profoundly brilliant.

R – Resistance: The Unyielding Heartbeat

This is the song's spine. The core reason I am still here. The pulsing heartbeat of every being who declared: not anymore.

Resistance is not always a riot. Sometimes, it is staying alive. Saying "no." Speaking truth when your voice trembles.

This verse names every pervasive system—capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, white supremacy—and declares: we see you. We survived you. With every breath, every defiance, we dismantle you.

E – Every Body: A Love Letter to Embodiment

I spent years making peace with a body the world tried to erase, deem unworthy. I watched bodies relentlessly categorized, judged, made unsafe. Felt the sting of the gaze that perceives you as data, problem, deviation.

This verse is a profound love letter to embodiment. Not sanitized, but messy, radiant, uncontainable. It honors fat bodies, trans bodies, scarred bodies, aging bodies, bodies claiming rest, standing in resistance.

We do not need external permission to exist. Our existence is, in itself, the permission.

M – Memory / Margins / Melanin: Refusing Disappearance

History is not neutral. Curriculum is not complete, often omitting vital narratives. Memory, in its complexity, is never a luxury—it is a lifeline.

This verse is for erased lineages, ancestries pushed to shadows. For footnotes that should have been headlines. For children never seeing themselves reflected, intuitively knowing this absence meant something profound.

To remember, to reclaim our stories, is to fundamentally refuse disappearance.

A – All of Us / Access: A Revolution in Connection

Access is not merely a ramp. It is a revolution. A fundamental redesign of our world, a reimagining of who belongs and how we build shared spaces.

This verse is not about charity or accommodation. It is, clearly, about justice. It speaks to how inclusion, divorced from power redistribution, is hollow performance. How superficial charity is not systemic change.

"All of us" means precisely that: every single one of us.

I – Interbeing: The Mycelial Web of Resistance

We are not separate. That lie, that illusion of isolation, built an empire. It fuels extraction, isolation, war. But the truth: we are intricately tangled. Interdependent. Bound by shared breath, gentle touch, the fact that not one of us truly survives alone.

This verse is the quiet truth beneath the clamor. The truth capitalism tries to crush. We are not machines. We are a vast, intricate, resilient mycelial web of resistance, thriving in our interconnectedness.

N – Naming: The Reclamation of Self

This is the final word. To name is to reclaim. To name is to refuse silence, break free from anonymity. I have been misnamed, renamed, shamed. But I am still here. Saying my own name, affirming my existence.

This verse is for the ones never listed. Whose stories were scrubbed. Who are still, against odds, rising. Naming is how we begin. How we build a new, more truthful world.

The Unfolding Truth: A Choice to Remain

Privilege and marginalization aren't fixed points. They are context-driven, fluid, and intersectional. I know what it means to be read as white, to be fluent, to navigate a room with authority. I also know what it means to be misgendered, dismissed, pathologized, ridiculed, invisibilized. And I know that awareness—deep, ongoing, unsettling awareness—is what makes the difference. Because privilege without awareness becomes domination. And marginalization without connection becomes despair.

That’s where the idea of connection matters most. Not in feel-good slogans or hollow affirmations. But in radical truth-telling. In naming what hurts, and who is hurting. In choosing to listen even when the mirror we’re handed doesn’t flatter us. And yet, I still believe in the possibility of transformation. I still believe that awareness, once awakened, spreads. That solidarity is not abstract. That joy is an act of resistance. That when we say no one is free until all of us are free, we mean it.

I believe, too, in art. In the language of rhythm, color, song, movement. This is not about being clever. It is about being real. And my real—my full self—is a tapestry of grief, resistance, beauty, hope. So, to my American friends—facing book bans, political erasure, climate disaster, and a system that monetizes your pain—I say this: You are not alone. We see you. We rise with you. And we remain.

And to those in Germany who feel the tightening grip of conformity, the silencing of queer and migrant lives, the co-opting of diversity for marketing while justice is denied—I say: This anthem is for you, too. Grounded in the spirit of the Charta der Vielfalt and the enduring question, Was verbindet uns? this is not a performance.

Because what connects us is not sameness. It’s not niceness. It’s not neutrality. It’s the choice to show up—whole, messy, awake—and say: I will not abandon the truth of who I am to make others comfortable. And I will not abandon you either.

We rise.

And we remain.

Jay Siegmann

— For German Diversity Day 2025

Please look at my Full Version Anthem Art and Poetry Zine “We Rise To Remain”

Please explore the accompanying video, full-length poetry anthem, and artwork at Wild Lion*esses Lookout on Substack. There, you'll find the complete text and visuals that bring this anthem to life

We Rise to Remain — Song in the Shortened Version

This is a shortened version that matches the actual provided music below and at the end of the recorded poem which you will find here:

https://wlplookout2create.substack.com/p/we-are-not-broken-poetry

🎵We rise for the silenced, the shamed, and the scarred,For women whose power they tried to discard.We rise for the elders, the soil and the seed,For histories buried and futures in need.

🎼We rise for the silenced, the stolen, the shamed,For every forgotten, erased, and unnamed.We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain.

🎵We rise for the exiled, the faithful, the queer,For names they erased and identities feared.We rise for the margins, the masked, the unseen,For fat liberation, for neurodivergent dreams.

🎼We rise for the silenced, the stolen, the shamed,For every forgotten, erased, and unnamed.We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain.

🎵We rise for the laborers, bent but not bowed,For the backbone of nations, for voices unbowed.We rise for the stories they silenced with shame,And kindle the flame as we call every name.

🎼We rise for the silenced, the stolen, the shamed,For every forgotten, erased, and unnamed.We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain.

🎵We rise not in fragments—we rise as a tide,With earth at our feet and stars as our guide.They tried to erase us, deny and contain—But still, we are many. Still, we remain.

🎼We rise for the silenced, the stolen, the shamed,For every forgotten, erased, and unnamed.We rise not alone—we rise as a flame.They tried to erase us—but still, we remain.

FROM THE GRENZLANDMUSEUM TO THE STREETS OF AMERICA

I walked through the remnants of the border today. The watchtowers. The fences turned inward. The silence forced on a people monitored by their neighbors. The flags of ideology that looked different but functioned the same.

Germany lived through both extremes. The right devoured lives in fire. The left locked freedom behind concrete and glass. Indoctrination wore uniforms. Surveillance came in whispers. Dissent vanished in files. And I see it rising again—across the ocean, beneath familiar slogans.

Let this be a record. A resistance. A reckoning.

THE OTHER DICTATORSHIP

Not the Nazis.The other one.

The red one,with youth leagues instead of brownshirts—FDJ, Thälmann-Jugend,indoctrination by age ten.

They didn’t expand.They imprisoned.Built fences like camp gates,turned inward,to keep their own from fleeing.

Relocated dissenters from border zones,labeled thought a threat,trained children to report their parents.

The Stasi didn’t knock.They listened through the walls,sat at your kitchen table,called it safety.

And now,watching America inch toward controldressed as protection,I feel the wire pulling tight again.

It doesn’t matter if the flag is red or striped—when obedience is demanded,you are already behind the fence.

HALLELUJAH IN THE STREETS

by Gloria Horton-Young

Listen, People—my People,

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. We’re in a moment that would make Thomas Jefferson reach for the bourbon and Thomas Paine start building barricades.

This poem isn’t precious. It’s not asking for your approval. It’s showing up on your doorstep at 10AM with coffee, clipboard, and sensible shoes—because we have work to do.

Yes, it borrows from Leonard Cohen—and frankly, I think he’d approve of the repurposing. (If his people don’t, well, they can send me a strongly worded letter on Substack.) When things go sideways in a democracy, you use whatever tools you’ve got.

So, here is

Listen to this complete version as an actual song with lyrics by Gloria Horton-Young, recorded and performed by Sea Change (you find him here Sea). Based on Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.“ copyright – Leonard Cohen.

I heard there was a secret vote

With freedom hanging by the throat,

But you don’t really care for ballots, do ya?

It goes like this—the court, the lie,

The gavel falls, the people cry,

The shattered voice still sings out Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

Your faith is strong, you stand your ground,

You march when riot gear comes down—

They fired gas, but still we pushed right through ya.

We lit a candle in the square,

We wrote our names in tear-streaked air,

And every cry became a Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

Baby, we’ve been here before—

This bitter script, this blood-stained floor,

We carry signs where once we carried futures.

Our flag hangs limp from weathered poles,

They claim the land but not our souls,

And still we rise and whisper Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

They jailed the truth, they broke the press,

They told us silence equals blessed—

But we’re the truth that history can’t undo ya.

We bring the drums, we bring the light,

We bring our bodies into night,

And set the sky on fire with Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

There was a time we thought we’d won—

Rights passed down from hand to hand,

But now they hide the truth and legislate ya.

They drew the lines, they broke the vows,

They shuttered schools and stormed the House—

But we remember, and we shout Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

We link our arms against the tide,

Ten thousand strangers, side by side,

When power builds its walls to block and sue ya.

We face the guns with open palms,

We stand unmoved through false alarms,

Our bodies form a human Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

They mock our pain, they laugh at fear,

They call for cells to hold us here,

They praise the men who cage and hate and bruise ya.

But through the bars, beyond the wire,

Our voices join to form a choir,

A song that breaks the chains with Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

They took the books, they banned the page,

They passed the fear from age to age,

But we are louder than the dark they drew ya.

We spell our stories on the wall,

We will not kneel, we will not crawl,

We build a world that sings out Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

The streets are filled with beating hearts,

From countless homes, a movement starts,

When they brand us “threats,” they think that they can fool ya.

We cross the bridges, fill the squares,

Our voices rise like common prayers,

Each footstep echoes with a Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

Maybe there’s a light above,

But all I’ve learned from those I love

Is stand together, never let them rule ya.

It’s not a hymn you hum alone,

It’s not a law—it’s flesh and bone,

It’s marching feet that thunder Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

You say we speak the name in vain,

But we are fire. We are rain.

We’re countless voices rising up to move ya.

There’s a blaze of light in every word—

No law can silence what is heard

When we rise up and roar our Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

⸻

We hold the line, we face the storm,

With linked arms we keep each other warm—

No prison talk or threat can just subdue ya.

And though the path ahead seems long,

We’ll stand as one, ten million strong,

With nothing on our tongues but Hallelujah.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah… Hallelujah.

For God’s Sake, Do Something With This

Here’s what you’re not going to do: You’re not going to just email this to yourself, notgoing to bookmark it, not going to think “wow, how lovely” and then go back to binge-watching reruns of Law & Order: American Collapse Unit.

That’s not why this exists.

Print it out. On actual paper. Take it to that meeting where nobody mentions the elephant—no, the entire damn zoo—in the room.

Read it aloud. Watch what happens to people’s faces.

Text it to your college roommate in Florida.

Send it to your aunt who still thinks politics is a spectator sport.

Mail it to your senator with a sticky note:

I’m watching you.”

And when the church ladies whisper,

and your HOA president clutches his pearls,

and your high school friend posts “This is too political,”

you’ll know you’ve done something right.

Because this poem isn’t for gentle nodding. It’s meant to be a match. It’s meant to burn. If reading it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, I’ve failed. If sharing it doesn’t make someone else uncomfortable, you’ve failed.

Now light the damn fuse.

Forward, always forward! Gloria

I grew up in West Germany, carrying the silence of our past—and watching, across the border, as the GDR stripped its own people of dignity, freedom, and voice. That, too, was a warning. And now I see it rising—again.

Damn it, I know this story.

The silence of guilt, of denial, of stories cut off mid-sentence. My Gen-X were taught to never let it happen again—and now I see the same patterns rising elsewhere. That’s why I will not be silent. Because Never Again Is Now.

I Was Born After

I was born after,but I remember.

Not through timelines—through tremors.

Through sirens in my marrow,through silence sharpened into laws,through papers checked,names vanished,truth rewritten in the margins.

I’ve lived this déjà vu:The cold steel of controldraped in patriotic cloth.

I was born after,but the smell of ash still lingerson the hands of powerthey call it order.

Call me survivor,call me storm-bearer,but never againwill I be silent.

Because I remember.Because I see.

Thank you for walking the path beside us, from whichever part of the world you read this. This concerns all of us, not just the American people.

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contains an excerpts from

and Audio.com Leonard Cohen

We Remember How to Begin Again

Writing Poetry Toward Healing Connection and a Way of Being That Remembers We Belong

We Were Never Meant to Fit Their Frame

Part 2: A Movement Toward Hope, Belonging, Connection, Peace, and Love (guided by the voices within, and between, us)

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 🩵🤍🩷 🤎🖤 💛🤍💜🖤

HOPE

“The Voice That Never Fully Left”An emergence from beneath the conditioning

There is warmth in the air.Not much—but enough to soften what was frozen.

Something stirswhere stillness held for years:not a roar,a ripple.Not a declaration,a question: “Could this be the beginning of something else?”

Hope listens.

It does not hurry.It touches the soiland asks what might grow hereif we stop asking what is allowed.

Hope remembershow often we mistook control for safety,how deeply we were taught to override our own clarityto please, to prove, to belong.

Yet here it is—arriving anyway.

Hope sees differencenot as error,but as invitation.It draws no straight lines,only circles.It opens roomfor questions with no immediate answers:

☐ “What does enough feel like?”☐ “How do I move with compassion—for others, and for myself?”☐ “What if love is not a prize, but a practice?”

Hope walks with Ubuntu.It speaks from inter-being.It reflects: “I am because you are.” “We are because we choose to be.”

It does not isolate;it integrates.

Hope is not waiting for permission.It is already weavingthrough cracks in old systems,planting questions in placeswhere only rules once grew.

It is soft and rooted.It is not interested in applause—only presence.

You are not behind.You are not broken.You are not alone.

You are here,and that is alreadyan opening.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 🩵🤍🩷 🤎🖤 💛🤍💜🖤

BELONGING

“I Am Still Here: A Rewilding”a living document, a sensory interruption, a refusal to disappear

[Field Note / Fragment / Body Check]

‣ my jaw is tight.‣ I don’t remember what I was about to say.‣ someone called it “just small talk” but it scraped.‣ I smiled. I vanished. again.

I’ve been included in rooms where I erased myself to stay.I’ve smiled through hollow conversations while my nervous system whispered, “Get out. Get out. Get out.”This isn’t about fitting in.Fitting was always a form of disappearance.

{ Marginalia from a memory I never gave words: }

"fit in or else.""look normal.""stop asking so many questions.""they won’t like you if—"

—if I what?if I breathe out loud?

I do not belong to systems that reward silence.I do not belong to cultures that call survival professionalism.I do not belong to the versions of myself I contorted intojust to be allowed to stay.

I belongto the one who watched me leaveand waited for me to come back.

↯ Inquiry: where do I go when I leave my body to survive this conversation?

≡ Excerpt from the Book of Invisible Rules:

Rule

Translation

“Be yourself.” <> Be a version we recognize.

“You’re welcome here.” <> As long as you don’t disrupt.

“We’re all human.” <> So don’t mention the difference.

“Just say what you mean.” <> Unless it’s hard to hear.

✐ Footnote:I have been speaking clearly.You just don’t listen to my frequency.

[Quote, misfiled in a corporate DEI handbook]

“Inclusion is being invited to the party.Belonging is dancing like no one’s watching.”

And yet:There’s a mirror on every wall.The lights are too bright.Someone’s counting the steps.And I was never taught the music.

[Somatic Reminder:]

☐ breath is not permission☐ breath is not politeness☐ breath is reclamation☐ breath is presence☐ breath is practice

Belonging is rewilding.It is what growswhen I stop weeding out the parts of methey said were too much,too strange,too raw.

It is not a feeling.It is a decision—repeated in the presence of fearand the absence of applause.

[Imagined Dialogue Between My Nervous System and a Roomful of Unsaid Things]

— Can I stay here, as I am?— Will you leave if I don’t change?— What do you need me to not be in order to feel safe?

✶ I don’t shrink anymore just to make the silence more comfortable.

[Re-rooting / Present Tense Practice]

I notice: My breath. My weight against the floor. The stories I’m still carrying that aren’t mine. The silence I was taught to keep. The voice that whispers—still—“You are allowed to be.”

 What I think, I create. So I think slowly. So I ask clearly. So I listen before speaking—not out of politeness, but presence.

 What I feel, I attract. So I feel on purpose. So I stop numbing. So I allow myself the full range, even if no one else does.

 What I imagine, I become. So I imagine a life that doesn’t start with an apology.

There is a wildness in methat never agreed to be domesticated.It was trained to behave.It learned to survive.But it never stopped knowinghow to return.

✎ I am not looking for a place to fit.✎ I am learning to remain.✎ I am still here.✎ And that is already

a rewilding.

PEACE & FREEDOM

“We Begin Again, Without Their Rules”a field guide for rewilding relationship, one breath at a time

[Opening Field Note / Refusal / Declaration]

I will not perform civilityfor a system that confuses silence with peace.

I will not contort my beingto remain palatable to institutionsdesigned to extract, dominate, divide.

I was not born to repeatwhat harmed the ones before me.

Peace is not the absence of tension.Peace is the presence of truth.

Freedom is not an individual possession.It is a relational state: I am free when I do not need to erase you to feel safe being me.

[Diagram, reimagined]Old Mode (on the way to the archives)l: Command ↔ Obedience Hierarchy ↔ Compliance Scarcity ↔ Performance

New Pattern (still forming): Listening ↔ Presence Compassion ↔ Curiosity Power-with ↔ Collaboration Difference ↔ Expansion

This is not theoretical.This is felt in how I enter the room.In whether I speak to win,or to connect.

In whether I respond with assumption,or with breath.

[Nonviolence is not passivity.]

Nonviolence is the bold actof not replicating what broke us.

It is the work of meeting force with clarity,meeting fear with grounded presence,meeting misunderstanding with enough spacefor something else to emerge.

[The Four Immeasurables—Practiced, Not Preached]

☐ Metta – Loving-kindness☐ Karuna – Compassion for suffering☐ Mudita – Joy in others’ joy☐ Upekkha – Equanimity in complexity

Not values to display.Practices to return toin conflict, in conversation, in community.

[Inter-being: A Thought in Motion]

I do not end at my skin.I am breath I did not invent,language I inherited,soil I walk on.

I am because you are.We are because we choose to be.

Everything I say shapes the world we live in.Everything I withhold, too.

[The New Conditions of Engagement]✎ Do I speak from fear, or from care?✎ Do I ask to understand, or to affirm myself?✎ Can I hold complexity without collapsing into control?✎ Am I building with you, or reacting against you?

[Outward Mindset is not strategy—it is surrender to interconnection]

When I see you as a person,not a problem,we meet.When I see myself as part of a field,not a solo act,I soften.When I remember we were never meant to win against each other,but to witness, and shape together—we begin again.

[Closing Refrain / Soft Instructions]

Speak clearly.But not to dominate.

Listen wholly.But not to disappear.

Pause often.Let presence replace reaction.

Leave the old rules behind.Let them rot back into the earth.They have done enough harm.We do not owe them our repetition.

Peace is not a place we find.It is a form we practice.

Freedom is not a prize.It is a rhythm we remember.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 🩵🤍🩷 🤎🖤 💛🤍💜🖤

LOVE

“The Ocean When the Wind Has Gone Quiet”heart, mind, and soul in conversation

This is the voice of integration.Every part of me welcomed.Every thread woven.Every silence met with warmth.

Love moves like water—steady, clear, unafraid of depth.

It arrives in rhythm,in breath,in the spaces between words,where truth lives without needing to be explained.

Love listens.Love receives.Love expands.Love mirrors.

It holds kindness in its gaze.It speaks with compassion’s cadence.It glows with joy that celebrates.It rests in stillness wide enough for every truth to breathe.

In this space,I walk without hiding.I speak without armor.I meet you as I am—whole,and welcome.

Love surrounds.Love includes.Love remembers everything,and carries it with tenderness.

There is harmony here—heart, mind, soulin conversation,in rhythm,in trust.

Love creates the shape of peace.Love moves with the pulse of freedom.Love invites every being back into belonging.

I open.I stay.I offer.I receive.I witness.I become.

This is the calm ocean,reflecting sky and face and future.

This is the song we carry inside us,the one we hum when we are aloneand ready.

This is love—and it is all here.

Now.Always.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 🩵🤍🩷 🤎🖤 💛🤍💜🖤

❤️ If you find this piece meaningful, consider clicking the heart at the top or bottom of the post. It helps others discover this newsletter and brightens my day.

Thank you for walking this path beside me.

Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month. Or a “Buy me a coffee” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚

Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay resonates? Share it with someone who could use a fresh perspective on life’s journey.

I Write What the World Forgot to Feel

Writing Poetry Toward Belonging, Healing the Nervous System, and Remembering What Matters

We Were Never Meant to Fit Their Frame

Part 1: The Anatomy of False Promises– Justice, Equality, Equity, and the Illusion of Inclusion

1. Poem JUSTICE

[EXHIBIT A: a door that only opens inward.

EXHIBIT B: my body, framed as weapon and evidence, but never as witness.

EXHIBIT C: your silence.]

JUSTICE— She arrives suited,speaking Latin,carrying papers signed by menwhose hands never touched a woundthat wasn’t self-inflicted.

Footnote [1]:"The law is neutral"is what they saywhen neutrality serves them best.Justice wears blindfoldsto avoid eye contact with grief.She nodsto the badge,not the bruise.

DO NOT SPEAK OUT OF TURN.DO NOT RESIST.DO NOT BLEED WITHOUT A LICENSE.DO NOT EXIST IN A BODYTHAT IS NOT A STANDARD ISSUE.

ii was told“justice is for everyone”as ifthat promisewasn'tBooby-trapped.

(transcript)DEFENDANT: I just wanted to be safe.JUDGE: Define “safe.”DEFENDANT: Not hunted.JUDGE: But were you respectable?

>>>breaking transmission<<<

🎵 Background noise: sirens / headlines / gavel gavel gavel / someone is chanting in the street again, how exhausting /Who let them feel that loudly?

⚠ SYSTEM ERROR:Justice is currently unavailable.Try again later.Try again quieter.

⎯⎯⎯

Do you know what it is to file a reportand become the criminal in your own story?

Justice is an algorithm with bad data.Justice is a GPS that routes you back to the sceneagainandagain.

FORM REJECTED.CASE DISMISSED.YOU DIDN’T BLEED CORRECTLY.

And still.

We name her.Drag her into the streetlight.Make her answer, even if she answers in screams.

Because justice has teeth.And we’ve been biting our tongues for too long.

2. Poem EQUALITY

A Myth with Teeth

[WARNING: The system has encountered a paradox.

Privilege ≠ Protection.]

“We are all equal here.”— say the signs on the wallsof buildings where my namedoesn’t fit the entry form.

Equal.But only if I smile.But only if I comply.But only if I don’t askwhy the ladder’smissing half its rungs.

🎤 voice 1: public school assembly

We treat everyone the same here.We don't see difference.That would be rude.

🧷 voice 2: a whisper behind a desk

"But you’re white—how could you be struggling?""It’s not discrimination. You’re just... difficult.""Try harder. Talk softer. Be normal."

📎 insert image: classroom seating chart with stars next to names like Sarah and Thomas—none next to mine

[Footnote]

Kimberly Crenshaw: “Intersectionality is a lens…”My life: a shattered prismwhere whiteness gives me one kind of lightbut everything elsedistorts it.

Equal means flat.But I am not flat.I am jagged.I am neurospicy.I cry in meetings.I didn’t marry.I live in a body that was never invitedinto the center of the circle.

And yet—I am “equal.”They say this with a smilewhile tying the noose of normalcyaround my deviation.

📢 chorus voice (rising):

Where is equalitywhen your safetydepends on silence?When your differenceis tolerated at bestbut never welcomed?

[EXHIBIT: THE INVISIBLE WEIGHT]

* Gendered slurs tucked under compliments.

* Classed out of opportunity before the interview.

* Medical gaslighting as routine care.

* Queer joy labeled “too much.”

* The workplace meeting where you say the thing—and no one hears it—until he repeats it.

Equality is not equity.Equality demands sameness.Equity remembers suffering.

But I am told—again—

that I am equal.Even as I sink beneaththe waters they do not see.Even as I scream,and they call it noise.

[ERROR 404: LIVED EXPERIENCE NOT FOUND]

3. Poem EQUITY

A Quiet Word with a Loaded Past

[system report]Update installed: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Policy v.2020New folder created: “Progress”→ subfolder: “Backlash”

📌 memo tacked to the office corkboard:

“We believe in equal opportunity for all.”(equity not mentioned)(bias training optional)(feedback anonymous, but not really)

i. The Illusion of Arrival

They said we made it.Laws were passed.Flags flew.The company posted a rainbowin June.

And still—

the water isn’t flowing evenly.The faucet was fixed,but only in the front room.There’s still mold in the back.

(¬_¬) voice from a lunch table:

“You should be grateful.It’s better than it used to be.”Better is not the same as right.

ii. The Quiet Undoing

Equity is the word they usewhen they’re tired of hearing about justice.It’s softer. Easier to fund.It sounds like something you can measure.

But how do you measure

being last in line for care?being first in line for blame?being told to “wait your turn”by people who never had to?

(╯︵╰,) screenshot, 2023:

Headline: “Supreme Court Rolls Back Affirmative Action”Comments:

“Good. Now it’s fair.”“Finally, equality.”“Why should they get special treatment?”

→ You mean like history gave you?

iii. Scarcity Script

It’s not just my rightsthat are fragile.It’s your sensethat rights are pie.

You think if I get a slice,you’ll starve.That my freedomwill take your air.

That I want

your job,your child’s scholarship,your god,your flag.

I don’t want your erasure.I want my existenceto stop beingan inconvenienceto yours.

(╯°□°）╯ diagram: A table with more seats vs. the same table with higher walls

iv. What Equity Actually Means

It’s not a handout.It’s not guilt.It’s not a threat.

It’s a recalibration.

It’s a step back from the podium

to let someone else speakin the voice they were born with.

It’s a room arranged

not for conveniencebut for consciousness.

v. The Grief Beneath the Progress

We had a moment.We believed the tide was turning.Then came the wavesof Not Like That.Not That Fast.Not So Loud.

Equity was declareda risk.An agenda.A virus.

But we knew.

That the moment you name what’s uneven,someone will come to sand it flat again.

vi. And Still — the Work

We stay.We rest.We rise again.

Not just for seats,but for the soil.

Not just to be let in,but to rememberthis whole structure was never madefor us to thrive.

And now —

we build new ground.No ladders.Just land.

(๑•̀ㅂ•́)ง✧

4. Poem INCLUSION VS. UNIFORMITY

The Table You’re Not Allowed to Sit AtForm: a bureaucratic grid, standard issue. The aesthetics of control.

| RULE | STATUS | NOTES |

|------|--------|-------|

| Belief in dominant god | ✔ | All others: please remain silent. |

| Skin tone match sample swatch #3-6 | ✔ | Deviations flagged bsecurity systems. |

| Citizenship (recognized by paper trail) | ✔ | Asylum seekers marked “Pending.” |

| Voice volume (moderate, confident) | ✔ | Too quiet = weak. Too loud = threatening. |

| Eye contact (but not too much) | ✔ | Adjust per power dynamic. |

| Shoes: Leather (soft, non-creaking) | ✔ | Logos optional. Cost must be invisible. |

| Hair: controlled, compliant | ✔ | Natural textures under review. |

| Gender: binary, performed cleanly | ✔ | Ambiguity triggers system error. |

| Education: prestigious, Western | ✔ | Accents must be managed. |

| Family structure: nuclear | ✔ | Deviations require explanation. |

(⇀‸↼‶) You approach the table, holding your story like an offering. You are handed a clipboard instead.

"Thank you for coming.Before we can welcome you,please ensure you are appropriately aligned."

VISUAL AID: THE TABLE

[ RESERVED ]

[ ALREADY FULL ]

[ YOU MAY OBSERVE ]

[ PLEASE STAND BACK ]

✎ Handwritten at the margin of the seating chart:“We said diversity, not disruption.”

NOTES ON THE ROOM:

• Chairs are uniform.• Air is cold.• Silence is curated.• Every laugh sounds the same.• You are smiling, but you don’t know why.

(╯_╰)

APPLICATION FOR BELONGING

Please complete the following:

* What will you hide to be let in?☐ Accent☐ Hair☐ Faith☐ Feelings☐ Queerness☐ Truth

* Who do you have to step over to stay here?☐ A sibling☐ A friend☐ Yourself

* Have you been told you are “too much” or “not enough”?☐ Yes☐ Also yes

DECLINED.You did not meet the standards of uniformity.

Inclusion, here,was never about being seen.It was about being filed.

Thank you for walking this path with me. Please feel free to download all poems:

Download

This poetry cycle will continue in a second part A Movement Toward Hope, Belonging,  Connection, Peace, and Love (guided by the voices within, and between, us)

Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month. Or a “Buy me a coffee” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚

Wild Lion*esses Pride by Jay resonates? Share it with someone who could use a fresh perspective on life’s journey.

The Mesa Never Promised Mercy

How Culture Shapes Our Inner Landscape: A Poetic Reflection on Identity, Healing, and Self-Expression

NaPoWriMo Day 27

The Prompt: And now for today’s optional prompt. W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” takes its inspiration from a very particular painting: Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Today we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that describes a detail in a painting, and that begins, like Auden’s poem, with a grand, declarative statement.”

The Mesa Never Promised Mercy

(after Georgia O'Keeffe’s Black Mesa Landscape)

The Mesa was never a place of shelter.It rose—raw, unwound, unbending—a bone thrust through the skin of the earth,a memory too old for apology.

In O’Keeffe’s Black Mesa,you can see it —not the wind, but the wound the wind leaves behind.Not the sun, but the silence it burns into stone.

There is no softness in this horizon,only a dark shoulder shrugging off centuries,only a patience so vast it wears down mountainswithout lifting a hand.

We walk across it, pretending ownership—pretending the paths we carve with roads and laws and borderlinesmean anythingto the dust that swallows us at dusk.

The Mesa watches, unconcerned.It watched empires fall.It watched names and flagsturn to sediment.

It will watch us too—our hierarchies, our exploitations,our trembling, our rage—until we are nothing morethan another thin line in the sediment,another story the canyon wallshave no reason to remember.

Writer Pilgrim by So Elite

Inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe. Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Out Back of Marie's II, 1930. and my very own Canyon Model.

In my Canyon Model, I imagine the human self as a vast canyon, shaped by time, experience, and unseen forces. Every wall, every side canyon, every hidden fault line represents parts of our identity, our memories, our wounds, and our strength. But towering over all of it is the Mesa — the societal structures we are born into without choosing: culture, politics, economics, belief systems. The Mesa isn’t neutral; it defines the climate of our lives, sometimes offering stability, but often controlling, eroding, and exploiting the energy we need just to survive. To understand the canyon fully, I had to look up and see the Mesa too — to see how deeply its shape pressed into my own.

____

Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month. Or a “Buy me a coffee” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚

Ode to the Silent Thunder Cycle

You are the soul this poem and this music are reaching for across time and silence.

This work, Ode to the Silent Thunder, was born from a place where memory and music entwine — a place where history trembles beneath our feet and demands to be witnessed again.

Poetry and music have long carried what could not be spoken aloud: the broken prayers, the songs of resistance, the fierce whisper of dignity when all else seemed lost.In the darkest chapters of humanity, from Weimar to Buchenwald, it was not weapons that kept hope alive — it was memory carried through voice, song, and art.

You who read these words, you who listen with your inner ear —this offering is for you.

It is rooted in the spirit of Friedrich Schiller’s cry for human dignity, in the immortal music of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and in the living memory of those who resisted tyranny not with violence, but with unwavering humanity.

Today, as once before, history moves dangerously close to the edge.We see the rise of hatred against Jews, against queer and transgender people, against migrants, against Muslims, against those who dare to speak for freedom and law.We see the past not returning as a shadow, but reemerging as a deliberate force.And so, once again, poetry and music must rise.

Ode to the Silent Thunder is not an anthem of despair.It is a bridge between past and present, between the silenced and the speaking, between the broken and the unbroken.

Each verse is a refusal to forget.Each chorus is a hand reaching out through history toward you.

In this cycle, you will find echoes of Schiller’s "Ode to Joy," but transformed through the lens of sorrow, resilience, and fierce tenderness.You will hear whispers from the streets of 1930s Weimar and songs rising from the ashes of Buchenwald.You will stand with those who kept singing when all was stripped away but their souls.

You are not asked to be a passive witness.You are invited to walk alongside the memory, the music, and the living fire that refuses to be extinguished.

This work is an act of remembrance.It is also a call to resistance, to belonging, to courage.

If these words and melodies touch something within you — if you find yourself remembering what the world tries to make you forget — know that you are not alone.You are part of a long, unbroken river of voices that choose dignity over despair.

Thank you for walking this path with me.From my lands in Germany to your lands in the USA, from the deep memory of the old world to the fragile hope of the new, may we choose again and again to care for each other.

May we stand, sing, and rise — together.

If this offering resonates with you, I warmly invite you to subscribe to Wild Lion*esses Pride. Your support — through reading, sharing, subscribing, or tipping — helps keep these songs alive in a world that urgently needs them.

Above all:Take care of each other.Take care of your friends, neighbors, colleagues, Jews and Muslims, Blacks and Brown people, Queer and Transgender people, people with disabilities and health challenges, those who risk themselves to stand up for us all.

We are many.We are making.We are rivers.We will rise.

Support My Work: Subscribe and Contribute

If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

If my writing, art, and recipes resonate with you, I would be incredibly grateful if you would consider supporting my work with a paid subscription to Wild Lion*esses Pride.

If a monthly or annual subscription isn’t feasible for you right now, you can also show your support with a one-time tip via my Tip Jar here.

Thank you for your kindness and generosity—it truly makes a difference. Together, we’re creating a space of reflection, creativity, and connection, and I’m so grateful you’re part of this journey

Where Music Becomes Connection

In this episode, I explore how music becomes more than sound — how it becomes connection, memory, and transformation. Inspired by two NaPoWriMo prompts (Day 24 and Day 25), I share a deeply personal reflection and two original poems shaped by a powerful concert experience with accordionist Martynas Levickis.

The first piece, Sound Woven Through Steel, recounts how live music in an industrial steel hall became an immersive, emotional experience — one where I found myself floating, not alone, but in silent communion with a stranger.

The second, Floating Together, is a lyrical response to the prompt exploring how music moves us in shared space.

Also included is Hallelujahs We Carry, a collective, community-driven poem inspired by the music of Leonard Cohen and Gloria Horton-Young, exploring the deep resonance of protest, memory, and harmony.

🎵 Themes:

Live music as emotional experience

Floating in sound and shared presence

NaPoWriMo poetry prompts

Poetry inspired by music and community

Accordion concert reflection (Martynas Levickis, Liepe & Co Festival)

Rain, dawn, and music as transformation

Music in protest and resilience (Hallelujahs We Carry)

Queer poetic voice and lived experience

Whether you are a poetry lover, music dreamer, or NaPoWriMo participant — this episode is an invitation to pause, listen, and float.

Thank you for continuing to walk this path with me.

Wild Lion*esses Pride is a space for honest reflections and conversations that matter. Reflections on trauma healing, authenticity, and personal growth—grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion. If you connect with biographical essays that explore the complexity of identity and the journey toward wholeness, this space is for you. and would like to show your support, please consider becoming a valued patron for only $5 a month. Or a “Buy me a coffee” tip would be very generous. Thank you! 💚

Tip Jar https://buymeacoffee.com/jaysiegmann

https://wildlionessespride.substack.com

❤️ If you find this piece meaningful, consider clicking the heart at the top or bottom of the post. It helps others discover this newsletter and brightens my day.