[469 words]
I.
here’s to all the Kicker Kids
I’m scurrying around the woods with.
we poke our faces through knotted leaves,
cheeks glistening, eyes glinting
as we slip each other sideward glances.
green-muscled vines draw us closer in
like a mother’s damp embrace—
or a witch’s, sweet with rotting herbs.
they entangle us so tight the Kicker Kids
breathe sunburn-hot against my neck,
my eyes, my lips.
we carve what we call secret tongues
into the tender skin of trees,
fingernails packed with earth
and vows strung like webs.
our shadows loom tall at sunset,
pretending they answer to no one:
each casual nudge—a blood oath.
if I step back, just once,
sneak in one cool breath
above our circle of bowed heads,
I might be swallowed out forever.
II.
King of the Kicker Kids and I, we hop
from one wizened old root to another.
“throw a bunch of bastards like us in a maze,”
he says, breath stale with grape juice
“throw ‘em in a maze together,
and they won’t claw their way out.
they’ll just fuck each other up.”
the other kids watch from their treehouses,
shaking gray leaves and rusted bugs from their hair,
clenching their fists—and unclenching—as we pass.
our cheeks conceal our smiles and
it’s all so glorious I almost forget how
I’ve never smiled except for envy.
so here’s to all the Kicker Kids and their King—
we are a single writhing organism
incapable of looking our reflection in its eye.
III.
King of the Kicker Kids and I,
we go dipping in the pond,
berries bursting bloody on our tongues.
we are pressed so close I can’t
tell his skin apart from mine.
clawing into the grass, I drag myself ashore,
dry my hair beneath a tree with fern-curled toes
and a memory of glass that was once sand.
I tilt my head and
catch a winking jewel of sunlight
in the corner of my eye—
a sole fealty I don’t offer to him.
IV.
all them Kicker Kids,
they Kick me to the tree—
bark fractured at the ankle,
a nest for worms with bent skeletons.
I cough, cling to my King’s sandals,
but he skips away, leaving me with
clumps of mud drying in my palms.
that night I sleep with my cheek
pressed against the tree,
learning the scratch
of things that stay—
things with baited breath,
things without eyes.
V.
here’s to all them Kicker Kids, they scurry
around the woods day and night,
eyes darting like antennas
as they pluck newborn petals
and hide them under pebbles—
only to forget they put them there.
I watch from in between the trees,
shaking gray leaves and
rusted bugs from my hair,
clenching these fingers
—and unclenching
until they learn the shape of fists
angry enough to crack bone.
Tejal Doshi (born in 2006) is a YA & speculative fiction writer and poet from India. Her work appears in Paper Lanterns Lit, The Echo Lit, Blue Marble Review, Nightjar Magazine, etc. She loves fantasy heists, twenty one pilots, and all things meta. Find her fangirling on Instagram @probably_tejal or on Twitter/X @entropy_75 and being somewhat professional on tejaldoshi.carrd.co
