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.
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