Who said broken has no purpose?

There are many things the world uses to establish our value. They look at our colored pasts, our colored skin, the colors of our clothes, and try to tell us what we’re worth. But our dark scars are not our summation. My brown skin contains more than my flaws, but my light too. And royalty comes dressed in red robes and my grandma’s purple pajamas, and isn’t always adorned with a crown. We are redeemable. We are valuable. We are...worth it.

The Potter’s House

They said I had no purpose.

They said my broken was too broken.

But they ain’t never been to the Potter’s house

They ain’t never been to the Father’s house

Where Roses of Jericho are potted in pots by the Potter’s mouth.

Stop to spot the top of the house

Where the Potter works.

Where the clay that once cradled the seed of my death lay.

There, resurrection was sown.

There, the marred clay was thrown.

Brown as my desert’s sand where my shame called home.

Brown as my skin’s melanin that now hides the weight of my sins;

Now taking a spin on the wheel of the Potter where the water was supposed to author life back into the fodder.

These hands…were a tsunami to my acacia.

These hands knew the skeletons of withered winters.

These hands…were familiar.

Like they’ve shaped me before.

Like they knew my first form.

These hands were skilled at more than ceramics.

They knew how to mold beautiful out of tragic.

Squeezing in

And letting go

Squeezing in

And letting go.

Like a chest taking a breath as if fixing to say,

“You may be marred clay

But you are not throw away.

Who said broken had no purpose?

Who said repurpose was less than?

Have you never heard of resurrection?

Something that was willed to die now repurposed to live.

Ain’t that a word?

And they said you had no purpose.

And they said your broken was too broken.

Guess it’s best they go to the Potter’s house.