Cephalopod by OlaRonke Akinmowo

Mama said if I wanted to I could sprout wings and fly.
If I wanted to, I could.

Mama said if I wanted to I could make fur sprout out of the pores of my skin and turn my hands into paws, my nose into a snout.
If I wanted to, I could do it.
I could become a big burly elephant, find a deep muddy pool, and lay in it, turning my body over and over and over, let the soft cool wet dirt embed itself into the creases of my ash gray skin.
I could be heavy as earth. 

If I wanted to mama said I could become an ombre-colored wolf with sharp white teeth, creep up on a rabbit, and use my fangs to rip its flesh from its bones, allow its warm blood to travel down my jaw, and melt into my fur,  making it slick and dark as oil, hhhhmmm delicious.
And dark.

Dark as the night sky I sit up in. Stare at the moon with tiny coke bottle eyes while perched on a branch, white pink-tipped feathers layered smoothly down my back, and a head that can go all the way around, hooot hooot hooot.

This thing you have, she said, this gift of transmogrification, it is both a blessing and a curse. Many of the people in our tribe who bear the mark and genome of changefication have unalived themselves, gone mad or just simply disappeared. Poof!
I believe my dear brother, your sweet Uncle Omar has abandoned his humanity to live in the ocean with the bones of our ancestors, his grief over what we went through during our first Era of Ache never left him no matter how many rituals of release he did. 

My guess is that he is at the bottom of the ocean, in a solitary den living as an octopus, with bright iridescent copper-colored tentacles, long and thick, layered with suction cups, round and big as teacup saucers just pulsating against the current.
I often have dreams where I see him finding their bones and piecing them back together, placing thigh bone up against hip bone, arranging the vertebrae of a spine in order from small to big and then small again.
I want better for you dear daughter, she said, being human is being here, and I believe it is here that you will find your best self, it is where you will learn patience, compromise, and trust.
It is where you get to be vulnerable, and grow a part of you that all of us can share.
I promise you reciprocity.
Mama said if you choose to change I understand, but I really hope you will try this being human thing, at least for a little while.

OlaRonke Akinmowo is an artist, Set Decorator/Dresser, and cultural worker. She is also the creator and director of The Free Black Women’s Library, a literary social art project based in Brooklyn, NYC.

The Free Black Women’s Library Substack is interested in publishing new and original work written by Black women, femme, and non-binary folks from all over the world. All are welcome to submit creative essays, short stories, poetry, letters, and prose (less than 3000 words preferred) for consideration.
Our literary theme for July - October is PRESSURE: writers are welcome to interpret this in any way they like, as well as include graphics, images, and hyperlinks.
Writers will maintain complete ownership of their work.
Pls send inquiries and submissions to thefreeblackwomenslibrary@gmail.com, with a brief bio & selfie.