The professor said
"Family therapy is like a Pie Graph
Everyone in the family contributes their own piece of pie.
When people leave
there's a chunk of pie missing
and the other members of the family
have to take on some of those roles to fill the pie."

Here's my theory:
Everyone in the family has their own whole pie.
Categorizes each housemate as a piece of it.
how they view them in their family.
how they relate to them,

Imagine a home
Mom and her four daughters.
Step dad, his daughter and son.
imagine three bedrooms.
The adults taking up one of them.

let's look at the Mother,
Her four daughters
all with different fathers
she knows how to raise children.

The daughters all know how to
Be
Children, be
Sisters, be
older or younger than each other.
The step-father knows how to have
A Wife,
One Daughter,
A Son.

Well Step-brother leaves the house.

Susie has a child at fifteen.
what does
her pie look like now?

She used to have a boyfriend,
four sisters,
a mother, father.
Now lost a brother
gained a baby.
She only knows how to be a child.

let's look at the mother.
She hasn't learned: Grandchild
but she knows how to raise a baby.

lets look at the step-father, lost his son, gained four daughters,
what's another one?

The sisters, lost their brother, a role model.
Exchanged for this this new baby.
another sister?

everyone's pie is empty in some parts.
judging by some other
dead white guys theory
when who you are doesn't line up
with who you see yourself as,
that's when people develop
Mental illness

Well I wouldn't call it ill, but let's count the bruises.
That baby is going to grow up as her mother's sister.
Suzie is going to seek the comfort of men.
Her sisters are going to constantly fight between calling themselves auntie
and Big Sis.
like tossing themselves on either side of the barbed wire fence is cause for death.

The farther we go back in each family member's backstory
the more slivers of pie we find
Georgia has autism,
Carley diagnosed depression,
Rosie an abusive relationship of 10 years.
Clover is quiet.
The Brother, schizophrenic, autistic, bipolar.
Any number of names they can slap on him.
He doesn't live there anyhow.
isn't human.

Muffle the sister that says she miss him.
hit her, cut her, lock her up.

This was a case study.
I lived with this family for four years.
unintentionally filled up parts of their pie.
I was Son.
Older brother.
Boyfriend.
Father.

When I stopped being a fly on the wall
Stopped seeing how their story was developing.

I didn't have any pie left.

I sometimes wish to own one of those personalized address stamps. You know the kind. The one with your name and your spouses. Or just with your shared name that became your forever last name.

"The Jones'
102 Bliss Ln."

The thing about those though? They're permanent. And I am not. In the past five years I have lived... 1, 2, 3, 4,... 8. Eight different places, all but two in the same town. Now imagine if I set out to roam the world. Too many options.

I can tell every college student going to my alma mater where the safe areas are too live.
"You don't want to live on the corner of here and there or that and this", and, "don't you dare think of living anywhere east of that street." "Oh that street? Yes it is has beautiful red and yellow tulips in the spring."
I can list off which apartments have hardwood floors, which are furnished - leather couches or ugly brown ones you'll sink down into, whose wifi ***** and doesn't.

Stir crazy. That's what that's called. At least that's what I get when I'm in one place for what I deem as being too long. I had to graduate so I changed houses, not cities. Although I considered a commute.

Now being here is driving me insane too. Crazy. It won't be long before I drop everything and move on. Now you can see why I can't have a personalized letter stamp. Hell, I don't have a permanent "home" longer than 6 months at a time. How do you expect me to have a permanent change to my last name as well.
To be laid out in ink?

Irreversible like these moves I've made.

• College is hard.**

And that’s the list of things they don’t tell you in College.

A prophesied alarm ticks away,
As sobering faces  make their way.
Welcome oh stranger, to the land of the learned,
A trip from a ticket handsomely earned.
Watch your crooked tongue,
Forked and twisted in a manner wrong.
For here there be beasts and creatures,
In the midst of dreams and futures.
Through the air drifts the scent of a fanciful tonic,
Quelling instinct, and suppressing the panic.
Walk past the snappy ladies and lads,
Peering at screens for the latest fads.
Watch their suits emanate regality,
Killing the scene with sheer brutality.
See through the pores of that fine fabric,
And you'll find the remnants of a familiar trick.
Not unlike the wisdom of the wizened,
The words of the victorious, the echoes of the poisoned.
Underneath it all, see the truth,
Strip away the puffed, monstrous brute.
It's a dainty little feeling, fear they call it,
On their faces, clear and large is it writ.
They turn from the brave to the meek,
Everyone caught in this noxious reek.
What they ought to have predicted,
Is that this reverie is self inflicted.
Sullen cheeks, and drippy noses abound,
Waiting to be addressed and found.
This place is a walking minefield,
Of broken bones and souls to be healed.
But its not their fault, I can't complain,
Because all they feel they don't feign.
As in the midst of this perennial parade,
I find solace in the friends I've made.

If I died tonight
Alone
Away
Without the one who stayed.
If I live tonight
Popular
Partying
I would never be the same.
I won't live
For another's sake.
Tonight's the night
My heart shall break.

the moments kiss you so quickly
you regret your promiscuity
while also questioning it's existence

Started off small.
The world in our hands.
Four years pass.
Like a camera flash.
Boyfriends, parties, now we're in my car.
Road trips, "I'm glad you're my friend".
You're unique and I'm consistent.
I understand you.
You appreciate me.
Soul-mates.
College, drinking, smoking.
I'm in your house with no one home.
Depression, obsession, times are changing.
You're drowning.
Your eyes are clouding.
I'm on the shoreline watching.
I'm throwing rocks like life preservers.
Waiting for you to catch one.
Blinded.
Undecided.
Sitting in the silence.
Waiting.

Three months from now I could be in my chair typing,
Three months from now I could be in a room teaching
Three months from now I could be in the road doing interview,
Or three months from now I could be in your arms saying I do.

There are endless possibilities that could happen,
But before that three months finally end,
Let me first savor my last college year,
Typing a poem while drinking a beer.