Devonne Brown

I am still in awe and disbelief.

I changed in the span of five minutes one December morning. 

I left home one day as a single human being and returned as a mama possum with two babies hanging in my fur. It was just going to be that way. 

I became a Shapeshifter. I had a litter of children, two at a time, and carried them that way. A Goliath. I rose from the floor with a baby under each arm when they needed to be fed or changed. We did everything together. I did what they needed.

Moms are all shapeshifters. We become what their children need the most when they need it. We are always Mom. Drop it all and run. In the middle of whatever sentence we are writing or speaking, we take off as needed.

When my boys are threatened or treated badly for any reason, I transform into Mama Bear. All claws, teeth, and ill will toward whomever dares cross my baby. I’ll embarrass myself with my dying breath if it means defending my child’s honor. No one takes a toy from nor says a cross word to one of my boys. Heaven help us all if they were to ever take me to work with them. 

Don’t let a woman do one of the boys dirty. Right before the eyes of the woman who’s breaking my baby’s heart, I will transform from the everwise and friendly crone into a beast so scary that girl will have forgotten she dreamed such a creature could exist. Once bad blood and poison is unleashed it can never be cleansed. When a woman messes with one of my boy’s hearts or minds, she doesn’t get a second chance. I have to be careful about that. 

I am a shapeshifter. I go to work and transmogrify to the teacher and then back home to mom again, where I cook, clean, fix plumbing, build things, break things, buy things, and kiss boo boos. I am an evolving spirit where my superpower is changing from one being to the next seamlessly as needed. It’s a demanding mom thing.