Potter‘s Hug

(By hands that shape the clay)

I am the potter,

cracked knuckle soul,

born in the campfires of the fleeing.

Clay under my nails, earth on my back,

I fled with my people,

carrying stories that weighed more than sacks.

I slept in the belly of borders,

where names become numbers,

and accents become evidence.

They call me “refugee” like it’s a curse,

but I have made homes from nothing,

laughter from dust.

They came with smiles like wet paint 

dripping promises,

sticky with illusion.

“Friend,” they said,

but their hands shaped nothing,

only stole the warmth I’d kindled

for my own winter.

They drank from the cup I spun

with sleepless palms,

and left when it was empty.

They called it kindness.

I call it theft with a grin.

And the system 

a furnace too cruel for creation,

too hungry for difference.

They cracked my vessels before they cured,

told me my hands weren’t clean enough

to hold an opportunity.

But still I shaped.

Each pot, a heartbeat.

Each bowl, a defiance.

I spun silence into resistance,

grief into glaze,

and still I offered the hug of a potter:

firm, shaping, forgiving.

Because even broken clay remembers

the warmth of touch.

I hug the world with these hands

though it bruised me.

I forgive the thieves—

not for them, but so I don’t carry their rust

into my next creation.

I am the potter,

and I will not harden into bitterness.

I survive by shaping.

I love by moulding.

I rise like the red clay of Kakuma Camp 

and though I crack, I still survive

-theHustla