And then of course there were there were the neighbors

I worried the mice would come for our crumbs,
It wasn't much but it was all that was left in the breadbox.

I refused to recycle and tossed egg shells on the floor.
My passive aggression became a performance art,
An audience of barely one.

We tended to the plants on the fire escape,
The ones plucked from the garden of my mother,
A willful intention to undo the past by trying to control the future.
In the end when they could no longer bend to light,
When roots sat parched and leaves hung heavy, exhausted in their grief,
We simply turned and threw them out.