I grew up
in the stale waters of a sandbox
because some kid forgot
to put the lid back on
before racing inside on a rainy night,
and unfortunately,
she never came back.
But I had never left
for she buried me in the sand.
Soon, mosquitos settled in
to raise their families.
They believed themselves
to be founders of new waters,
ignorant of the forgotten shovels
and sinking castles of Atlantis.
I watched as the leaf flag fell
from its twig mast
into a murky puddle below.
The glorified kingdom was nothing,
but a distant memory.
Now, the land is claimed by scrambling mosquitos
that fight over a throne made of a twisted spoon
that was stolen from the kitchen.
They have never eaten from this spoon,
so it is not their birthright.
Still, one triumphs over the others,
and in an attempt to flaunt his reign,
orders for my body to be harvested
of its ample red fruit.
Mosquitos rip away
at my flesh,
hungry to please their new master
and earn favor for themselves.
When I finally manage to crawl out of this box,
I stumble over to rest on a nearby swing,
but the chains fall through like cobwebs.
I lay in a tangled heap on the ground,
and my bones begin to feel like those chains,
a forgotten home to a spider that used me
and then left me to waste away.
I hear someone shout and turn
to see none other than that kid from so long ago,
beckoning to me from her porch
with a toothy smile.
She is taller than the length of the sandbox now,
and carries a bag of sand in her hands.
The girl hoists the sandbox up
and over to the woods,
where she dumps it into the weeds.
I hear the mosquito king and his people cry,
as they are swept away into a foreign land.
The girl returns with the box in tow,
setting it down before opening the bag of sand.
As she pours,
I notice that this sand is of higher quality

than the last had been.
Once she is finished,
she kneels down in the sand and hesitates
before patting the spot beside her.
I join her in the sand,
remembering the summers
that we had spent together in days past.
Though she had once buried me to rest,
her arms wrap around me
like the twisted spoon,
and together,
we build a new kingdom
in which we reign as reborn queens.