August 2025 Feature: Kendra Allen

Kendra Allen is a multi-genre award-winning author from Dallas, Texas, whose debut novel Like The People Do is forthcoming in 2026.

Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, TX. She's the author of memoir Fruit Punch, poetry collection The Collection Plate, and essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction in 2018. You can find some of her other works on, or in, Oxford American, High Times, Repeller, Southwest Review, The Paris Review, The Rumpus, and more. Her debut novel Like The People Do is forthcoming in 2026.

BABY POWDER

Winter here is mostly a mix of every other season. It’s spring; then sometimes, it all falls down. Way more ice than snow. Lots and lots of rain. It’s prolly why Daddy don’t leave with no clothes. When the day can start with a frozen windowsill, and end with ya back sweating out a bullet, it makes it hard to connect to any particular feeling, let alone if you need to wear a coat or not. If it was summertime, I think Mama might’ve cared more about the changes, cause summer got purpose, and consequence. It’s the only season where everything is seemingly the same kind of hot. People perspiring. Dogs digging and panting into the dirt. Brain fog overthrowing all of our structures. Popsicles melting. Those were the times Mama needed Daddy around to fix the A/C or something. Jumpstart the car. Pull up the weeds. Because she didn’t like to sweat. So when I got off the school bus and saw Daddy sitting in his truck with the engine running—although heat is what I was waiting to feel, the only thing that came was, bout time. 

“I’m out.” he said. 

“Ok.” I answered, “Whatchu want me to tell Mama?”

“Nothing.” Daddy pressed into the steering wheel with one hand and pounded it with the other, “I want you to stay out of it Minnow, aight?”

I shifted the straps on my backpack from one shoulder to the other, because these people make moderate sense to me. I mumbled I will

I meant I guess I’ll see you later, then

“Lock the door behind you.”

“Ok.”

“I’ll call you later.”

“Ok.” 

“Why you ain’t got no coat on?”

“Can I have my phone back?” I asked. 

“Nah. I bought you some food though, it’s on the counter.”

“Ok.”

“Love you.” he held his closed fist outta the window and I pushed my knuckles into his. When he grabbed my wrist, my palm opened and hung there. I looked at our hands and he looked at my forehead, and when Daddy said he was sorry for all this, I jerked my elbow back but he wouldn’t let go. He kissed my hand, and that was weird because I knew he’d done it before, but that was when I was little, so it made me uncomfortable now. I didn’t show it, or say it though. Instead, I asked if I could leave my backpack in his truck. He looked uncomfortable then, too, but it was a Friday, so I did it anyway. I tied the straps together, took out my school badge and slid it under the passenger seat. When I went inside, I washed my hands, then stood by the door eating and peeking out the bottom of the blinds. Daddy sat in the driveway for forty-three minutes, marinating—then, he shifted into reverse, and pulled off. 

That same day the temperature dropped down to thirty odd degrees and by evening, it was ice all over the roads so Mama got stranded at work. 

“Don’t worry bout me. I can stay with a friend.” she told me, “I know somebody who live close by.”

“How long?” I put the house phone on speaker, “You think school gone get cancelled?” 

“Just until the roads clear. And let’s hope not.” she laughed, “But if the power go out, you know what to do.”

“Can I order food?”

“Ion care whatchu do Mimi, just stay ya ass inside and don’t let nobody in my house.” 

“and don’t let nobody in my house,” I mimicked. It was my favorite pastime; pretending to be her. I boiled pots of water, the way she would. One for eggs—so I could make tuna fish the way she does; with a couple slices of fresh jalapeno. & the other pot, I keep it going to pour water over the pipes the way Daddy taught me to. When he took my phone, I’d skipped so much school that I was close to being expelled, but even now, I still might have to repeat the tenth grade. Mama say she proud of me for how long I stayed undetected; how it shows I got a big brain and some critical thinking skills, but Daddy say I done lost my damn mind and he gone help me find it. Unfortunately, everything around here gets hid in the same spots; and I was bored, so I found it; in the back room in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet right under the ashtray he hides his weed in. It was a pair of old sandals to the left and an extra-large sandwich bag filled with enough letters to break the seal’s lining in the middle. I poured all the letters out because there was nothing like the reveal of what you already know, and what I always envied: Mama not the type to hide. She packages and places things in your face, so you can’t see them. Like: if Daddy had happened to stumble upon twenty letters addressed to the mother of his child, she knows he wouldn’t explore the situation no further. The love he’d want to preserve would encourage him to stay away from it. Because Mama won’t lie. I sat on the floor and lined the letters up across the carpet by name, but when I saw they were all from the same person—somebody named Midday—I lined them up by date. I read from old to new and took notes inside of a book cover. 

Midday addresses Mama as:

• Sweetness

• My love

• Baby 

• Lani (mostly) 

Things Midday be doing:

• Dirty mackin’ 

• Speaking in code

• Not being discreet 

• Begging

• Asking to pay Mama’s ‘lectric bill cause you got a fire in ya

When I finished my first round of annotations, I came to the conclusion that Midday—at best—must be old enough to be somebody’s Granddaddy. At worst, Midday and his letter writing must be the reason Daddy say he done messing round with Mama and her mess. There was some other man who loved her, too, and he ended every letter the same way: Come back to me, Lani. At first, that made my skin crawl, reading that, cause Mama had said only my daddy and her daddy ever called her Lani, but the more I read, I started feeling independent. Free. Like wind. Midday was acting like he learned how to write for her or something; all his thoughts too spiraled with longing for him to feel any shame. And it was something about that I respected—in anyone—to a certain extent. It also made me laugh, too—his whimsical nature—cause Mama don’t like that. She’ll say quick fast and in a hurry: “Get to the end Mimi, before I forget.” But Midday say: Lani, my love, do you remember when… or I miss you and the time we…and if you leave him... round letter fourteen, I understood him to not only mean Daddy, but some other people too, cause Midday kept letting it be known how much it hurts, for him to know Mama be out galivanting with people he know. He kept mentioning Tony and Cass, and somebody called Sample. But I knew Tony. He was married, and Mama said he can’t read, so I didn’t know why Midday was making him such a threat. But I never heard of Sample. I learned he liked to play a lotta pool, talk a lotta shit, and hold on tightly to Mama’s hand. I wondered if Sample was the reason Daddy moved out or if Sample was just the finest man in the world, cause that’s the way Midday was talking bout him; getting angrier and angrier by the letter. Defeated, he said, cause Mama belong[ed] to somebody else; which made me think maybe Midday didn’t know nothing bout Mama at all. She always told me don’t ever confuse the love and respect men have for a woman tied to a man as respect or love for women.

“Remember that!” she’d say, “If you don’t remember nothing else!” 

I got up from the floor to go find pants and socks and a hat; and as I thawed the pipes, I wondered if Mama was at Sample’s house right now, pretending to need his help or being too prideful to accept it. When the ice melted and she returned home, she stood in my doorway with her heels in her hands. When she asked had I heard from Daddy, I told her no, and when she asked where he at, I told her he left. She said ok. But it wasn’t about being ok. It was about information. When I told her I read the letters, she asked if I had any questions and when I said no, we just kinda sat there gazing at different walls. 

“You can keep ‘em,” she told me, “if you want.”

“I don’t want.”

“You might. For when you get older.” she yawned, “I wish I knew one real thing about my mama.” “I know a lot of real things about you, Mama.”

“Yea, but, it’s never enough.”

“Are you in love with Midday?”

“Girl, don’t make me laugh. Midday ain’t nobody.”

“What about Sample?”

“Sample is a nice man. You should meet him.”

“Cause you in love with him?”

“Being in love don’t matter with men, Mimi. Plus, I only ever been in love with you.”

“That’s kinda sad.”

“I’m very happy.” 

& I believed her. 

The next time I saw Daddy, it took convincing; and on the way to school—when he told me I could have my phone back under one condition—that I don’t give Mama his new number—he couldn’t convince me. I understood the circumstances, but it didn’t make no sense to me how someone who shares a child can get to make the choice to not speak, so I unbuckled myself and climbed in the backseat.

“You getting older now,” he looked at me in the rearview, “things are changing, and I think you old enough to not need a middle man. You can speak for yourself, can’t you? That ain’t never been a problem before.”

Those were his words. His phrasing. The prompt. & although I hadn’t seen him in days, that felt like all he was doing—talking, to fill in the gaps to where my questions would be. He rambled on about change and growth and the state of our family structure and I listened, but when he was done—and I asked if he decided to leave because Mama like to have her options, or was it because he was embarrassed that other people now knew about Mama having options—he told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and didn’t reopen his mouth. I looked outta the window. I felt away, and reconsidered. Repositioned. And that angered me; how angry I was beginning to feel towards him. I didn’t have to look at him to know what he was doing in my peripheral. I knew his hand was on his face, pulling, at his beard. I knew the sigh he had let out would be his last big breath until I got out. And I knew he thought my question was me picking a side. 

When I slept over, the place felt familiar; like I had been there before. After I showered, I sat on the couch and Daddy told me his friend Ronny used to stay there. 

“The one be cheating in spades?” I asked.

“The one and only.” 

I liked the apartment. It had one bedroom and one bathroom, and one door, but Daddy had redecorated the place with black and red and a vulgar disposition. He needed help. He was sinking into the seat; just sitting there, like a stump. I got his keys and ran downstairs to get my backpack. I had lotion inside. When I sat back down, I started to feel sorry about not being able to feel sorry, so I grabbed one of his hands. I think the gesture surprised him—or jolted him back to life—because he flinched as if I was a stranger and it made me rethink my own touch, even as I proceeded. His palm skin was soft, but the covering was as cracked as a map. I rubbed the lotion into my hand first, before kneading his. There was no reason to be so ashy. I figured it was from his mechanical work, but most likely, it was from bogarting the remote. He always held on to it too tightly. Over the years, I learned how to wait it out; would lay across the bottom of they bed looking back every once in a while to see if he’d doze off—because the next step was a snore—and a snore is when I could pounce and change the channel. But most times, when I looked back, all I’d see was Mama with her leg wrapped around Daddy’s waist. He’d be tracing her thigh with his other hand, and she’d always have her head right in his armpit, so she could fall asleep first. 

“I’m sorry I made ya Daddy feel bad,” Mama say when I tell her, “I really am. But, I think this is for the best; the decisions we made.” 

“Can I go stay with him for a lil while?” I asked.

I leaned against her doorway and watched her head turn from Sample’s shoulder. He had his fingers on her thigh—not tracing like Daddy did—but squeezing. I wanted to frame the image for them both, because I thought Mama looked really pretty, laying there. She felt wilder, and Sample stayed quiet when it came to my Daddy, so I liked him a lot.

“You sure?” she sat up, almost frowning. 

“I’m sure.” I said, “Just for a lil while. You got somebody. Daddy just got me.” 

“Minnow, that’s not yo responsibility. You wanna save people,” she said, “iono where you get that from, but you messing witcha own feelings and saving folk ain’t no way for no girl to start living her life. You not gone ever stop. And you gone be bitter when you never get thanked for it.”

“It’s just so I can see him more Mama, dang.”

“I guess that’s ok,” Mama got up out the bed, to hug me, “But make sure it’s only a lil while.” 

At my new home, I kept thinking about what was quietly being said about my life. That for the rest of it—when I am a woman—and they are them—the only thing I’ll have is what I got—an offer. A helping hand. Not a romance for the ages, but for an overly-extended moment. I saw my parents as a success story, but over dinner—when Daddy asked how Mama was doing—I saw it as a step in the wrong direction. I reached for the sake between us, and when he didn’t knock my hand away, I poured myself some, and swallowed.

“You know Mama;” I answered, “she always aight.”

Daddy rippled his fingers on the table and made a slight beat. The whites of his eyes were always mineral-like and red ever since. Glassy. I didn’t know what to do, but I was tired of him acting so helpless and alone when I gave up my room and hadn’t missed a day of school for us to be together. 

“Daddy, you still love Mama after all this?” I asked, “Like, still wanna be with her love.”

He shrugged his shoulders. He was insane, and I didn’t know what to do, but I was starting not to care about nobody’s pain. When I went to see Mama that weekend, Sample was sitting on the arm of the love seat eating corn nuts and talking long, and I was dozing off on his story, until he got to the point.

“I know it’s crazy how all this happened,” he told me, “But I love ya Mama. I always loved ya Mama. Been waiting on her forever. And I woulda kept on waiting, too. But now that the waiting ova wit, I just wanted you to know, lil Minnow, that I love you, too.”

I threw my neck back to look up at Mama, who was looking down at me. She was greasing my scalp, and we both looked over at Sample, before looking back at each other, and laughed so loud all Sample could do was join in laughing, too. He threw corn nuts at us and held in his smile, but I knew he was feeling good. Important. When I turned to ash Mama’s cigarette, I caught him staring at her, and when he caught me staring at him, he winked at me.

“What they call you Sample for?” I asked. 

“When I was a lil boy...”

“Everything ain’t happened when you was a lil boy, fool.” Mama was still laughing, “Just finna create the story on the spot.” 

“You can call me Sutton.” he said, “That’s my name. But only you.”

“What Samp tryna say Mimi,” Mama said, “is we think we gone go head and get married.” 

They both stared at my scalp, and I’m sure I said something agreeable back, but I don’t remember. I just turned my face to Mama’s knee, so she could get my edges good.

Mama and Sutton wore all black to the courthouse, and when they both forgot to write down some vows, I knew it was a sign they would do really well together, and for a really long time. That felt true to me, but it was a definite for Daddy. When I waved them away to their weekend honeymoon, I drove Daddy’s truck directly to the park around the corner like he told me to. He said he’d meet me there, cause we needed to talk. I figured if not about the wedding, then about getting my permit, but when he showed up, he wanted to talk about the future. 

“Whatchu think about moving?” he had brought supplies to paint with, and a blanket. He looked put together that day, like he had places to be.

“Move?”

“Yea… maybe Shreveport or uh, uh… Mississippi. Maybe even uh, Corpus… Lubbock... if you wanna stay in Texas.” 

“If I wanna stay in Texas?”

“You can start over at a new school, I can start—”

“We don’t got no people in none of them places.” 

“I know that, Mimi.”

“What about Mama?” 

I asked, only because everything about us is about Mama. Daddy didn’t answer, but he look disappointed by the question; like he didn’t get what I wasn’t getting—that he could no longer care about Mama. He asked for his keys back, and started packing up the paint supplies. The mini canvas’. The brushes. The tubes of dollar store watercolors. He poured our rainbow water outta the Styrofoam cups and into the grass and was acting like he wasn’t the one who packed up and left. 

“I don’t wanna leave Mama.” I stood to my feet and wiped an orange stain onto my black dress with the yellow flowers all over it. 

“So stay.” 

“Whatchu mad at me for?” 

“I’m not mad at you.” he said, “Why would I be mad at you?”

“Cause you always acting like you mad at me.” I said, “Every time I try to talk to you, you acting like you mad at me.” I said I don’t wanna move

I said I like living with you

I said But I don’t wanna move

“I’m sorry about today and all the stuff she did, but you just gotta get over it. Wait until I’m eighteen or sum. Iono. But we not moving.”

I stood there, but he didn’t respond. He reached out his arm for the keys. I hesitated. Gripped them tight, but decided to put them behind my back. As Daddy continued to tidy up the earth around us, he asked me to at least unlock the door so he could put the stuff inside, and I knew then—no matter what happened—what was said—by fall, he would be gone. So I kicked my painting into the water, and threw the bottles and the blanket. The only sound was my limbs whipping through the air. He stood there and stared—waiting for me to finish—so I threw the keys in the water, too. And when Daddy tried to hug me, I knew for sure he would really leave me here, no matter what I did. Even as he said he would never leave me. Even when he said I’m always welcome. Even when he said he wants me to come—it didn’t matter, because all I heard, and all he meant, was: “I gotta do what I gotta do.”

THE INTERVIEW

This interview was conducted between Kendra Allen and Jae Nichelle on June 30th, 2025.

Thank you so much for sharing “Baby Powder.” It’s such a compassionate portrait of a defining moment for the people in Minnow’s family. Where did you begin when conceptualizing this story?

Ahhhhh!! Thank ya’ll so much for giving it a home. I feel like to some extent, mother/daughter dynamics are always showing up in my work, naturally, but with Lani and Minnow, I was fascinated by what it feels like to have a mother you’re in somewhat awe of; rather romantically or admirably, Minnow has a soft spot for the woman she believes her mother to be and she respects the character of her mother due to the truth-telling that takes place between them. Lani’s ability to accept the reality of her decisions endears Minnow to her more, and I wanted to build a story out of that acceptance, and I wanted a write a child who didn’t shy away from pressing into the fabric of her family’s current dysfunctions. 

Agency and choice are huge themes in the story. Lani likes to “have her options.” Minnow’s father chooses to leave, and Minnow has to decide if she’s leaving or staying. How did you navigate Minnow’s complex agency as a dependent teen, yet one seemingly given a lot of freedom? Was this challenging?

It was definitely challenging because freedom doesn’t exist for any child. I knew this was a reality that would have to almost slap Minnow across the face—this realization that even if she thinks she’s making the calls—choices have—and will continue to be—made for her, even when she’s caretaking. I think it was important to show how even if we see the power Minnow can wield as a middle man—at the end of the day— that power can only ever look like freedom on Minnow. Parents can make her optionless whenever they feel like it. Eventually, I wanted to move Minnow away from the narratives and backstories she sometimes creates on the spot as a way to cope with all the abrupt changes of her homelife and have her easy-goingness—her adaptability— to not come to a halt, but to boil completely over. To have the reader see her as who she should’ve always had the chance to be—a kid; and that took me years to figure out, that she had to become one when it was seemingly too late. I knew once that veil was broken, Minnow’s needs would be different, and because of this, she wouldn’t get the response she deserved due to her parents seeing her—burdening her—as someone who knows better instead of them having to do better. 

In 2023, you mentioned in an interview that “Childhood, memory, patriarchy, (In)fidelity, death, mental health, water, and hands” are recurring and important themes in your work. And indeed, some of those show up in “Baby Powder.” Are there any other themes that have crept up into your writing recently?

Ancestry, ambition, redemption. Grief been a big one for about two years now. Maybe repression, and how it informs desire. The elasticity of intimacy. Lots and lots of yearning. Tenderness, too. Those last three have caught me way off guard. It’s been tripping me out, how quickly they’ve shown up and how much they fight to stay and how much I want them to lead, now. 

You are the author of an essay collection, a poetry collection, and a memoir. Not to mention your forthcoming fiction projects! Do you view these works as separate entities or have they all informed one another?

Everything I’ve ever written was informed by the last thing I wrote. Ain’t no fresh, untouched ideas over here! I’ve learned each new thing is—in some way—is tryna answer, discover, or describe something better than it did in the last essay I failed to be fulfilled by. That maybe the medium of the new thing has to change, or the genre has to shift, and that very real thing needs to turn into a made-up thing. A poem. Whatever. But within that, there’s always a flow, there’s always a circulation. It’s never about not having something to write about more than it’s about equipping yourself with information, so you can have the curiosity and stamina for what needs to be explored once a thing is “done.” Because it’s never done, and none of it stays separate for me for long. It all goes back to those themes—those things are endless. 

What has been the most unexpected event in your literary and publishing journey thus far?

Writing fiction, for sure. Every day it’s like, Girl, what is you doing, and why is you doing it?

You previously wrote a music column for Southwest Review, so I have to ask: what’s on repeat on your playlist these days?

Ahhh! Ok, Destin Conrad for like two straight years, but on the daily, “Jumpin’.” It’s the best song I’ve heard in a minute. I can’t even express how good it is. Listen to it with headphones! Besides that, “Vibes Don’t Lie” by Leon Thomas, “Sudden Desire” by Hayley Williams, and “Come Home To God” by Amaarae. Mind you, I think every single one of these songs is perfect.

What’s a personal landmark in Texas you wish more people knew about?

Southern Skates

How can people support you these days?

By reading more books by Black women, and talking to people about them. 

Name another Black woman writer people should know. 

Jameka Williams! American Sex Tape still be on my mind. Also, Sasha Debevec-McKenney debut collection Joy Is My Middle Name will be out in August! Both books everyone needs. 

###

Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. Click here to support Torch Literary Arts.