Porsha Monique Allen

You Remember Running out of the mouth of Something

then into some kind of fire, then into some kind of water. You remember being swallowed by a ray of light then landing in a field full of flowers. You explain this dream to your therapist who is nodding her head. What do you think that it means? she asks. You inhale deeply & notice the smell of lavender in the air & that the walls in her office are cream. I am not sure you say. Perhaps it means that I was saved from something bad, something ready to swallow me whole. You notice that your therapist is still nodding her head & shaking her leg. You ask her to repeat what you just said to make sure she has it all down. You said that you remember running out of the mouth of something, then into some kind of fire, then into some kind of water. You remember being swallowed by death. You look up at her. A ray of light you whisper as if it is somehow different from what she said, a ray of light.

Porsha Monique Allen

Porsha Monique Allen received her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. Her work has appeared and is forthcoming in Scene & Heard Journal, Apricity Press, Obsidian, Rattle, Belle Ombre, Protean Magazine, Scalawag Magazine, & elsewhere. She was selected as a semi-finalist for the Naugatuck River Review’s 12th Annual Narrative Poetry Contest.