Julia Roberts

The world keeps leaning stranger,

as if the ground beneath us tilts and nobody says a word.

Bliss—what a foreign border,

too far to cross without losing half your skin.

Blue skies hover over divided lies,

and the leaders,

supposed keepers of the “free world,”

snarl like alley dogs.

Julia Roberts no longer makes movies,

but I have reruns and food-centric television

to simmer me in nostalgia,

keep me lukewarm, not boiling.

So I mark the days by birds—

the finch, the crow, the cardinal—

naming them as if they were my children,

my feathered constants,

who do not betray me.

Meanwhile, I am relearning how to cook—

knife in hand,

a ritual of heat and chopping—

but still I eat Uncrustables for breakfast.

The absurd balance of progress and collapse.

Somewhere, orange 45/47

is plotting his breakfast

with fried hard eggs and silver spoons,

stretching inside a room I will never enter.

And me?

I am here,

in this cracked-open morning,

trying to say something that doesn’t yet know its shape.

Are we forever fucked?

Probably.

But today—

today is breathable,

manageable in its smallness.

The birds are still singing.

Their wings still catch the air.

That is enough for now.