lime juice

i get a new terror early in the morning.
go into the kitchen & gather up all the knives
to bury them in the yard. we are getting 
new neighbors & i do not want them.
i threw a witch bottle into their yard 
when the realtor was walking around
with his office building face. i might regret it
i might not. i am so tired of being a body. 
do ghosts think "i am so tired of being a ghost?"
maybe the trees are content. i put my ear
to the trunk & i hear them complaining
about the bugs & the heat & the worms.
knife trees grow & we have an even bigger problem.
you ask me, "why don't you 
try to fight your compulsions?" i take you to stand
(at a safe distance) beside the knife trees. 
i explain, "they swell." once i started drinking
lime juice & i began with just a splash inside
my tea & then i was filling the whole glass
with lime juice. my mouth bloomed with ulcers
until i had to stop. a lime tree grew in 
my bathtub & labored to hide it
from everyone else in the apartment.
my mom keeps saying, "maybe the neighbors 
will be nice." she doesn't understand 
that i don't care if they're nice. i want 
everything to never move & stay the same.
i want the knives not to ripen & fall. i hoped
to get rid of them. use my teeth like god intended.
instead, they are always seeds. 
when the wind blows they sing like
windchimes. i go to take a shower & find
a fresh tree there. the limes, swollen & sour as ever.