Hey guys! It's been forever since I've posted, but I want to start again. I was thinking about this on the bus and typed it up as soon as I got home.

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I will know when he throws on his orange sweater
and in that moment
I will not mind orange
at all.

I will know when he puts mayonnaise on his sandwich
and the thought of kissing him
does not bother me
(very much.)

I will know when I am getting ready at 10:01
and he isn't here yet
but at 10:10, he knocks and then
10:10 becomes
my favorite time.

I will know when we walk the streets
and I don't notice a single necklace clasp
that is crooked because he is all
I see.

I will know then that I am in love
that I have fallen in love
that I have found
The One.

I will know when he throws out his orange sweater
because he knows
it is still my least favorite color,
it gives me a headache,
and I can't take it and wear it.

I will know when he stops buying mayonnaise
because he knows
I still can't stand the smell,
Looking at it still makes me feel
a little sick.

I will know when he points out the symmetry of 10:01
because he knows
I love the way it looks
but still kisses me at 10:10
since he knows I still remember.

I will know when he fixes my necklace clasp
because he knows
it will annoy me
when I look in the mirror
to get ready for our date.

I will know then that I have found love
that we are in love
that I know
True love.

The Unique Value of Private Prisons (Ironic Encomium)

Thérèse Klingele

Ironic Encomium

The Unique Value of Private Prisons

Few private institutions provide widespread benefit more than private prisons. Private prisons are run by government paid contractors, who aren’t held to any enforceable standards, giving them the proper flexibility needed to assess an accurate value of each human life. The ingenuity of private prisons trading basic human dignity for economic gain provides a healthy work environment for prisoners, and safety and convenience for citizens.

Private prisons can only make money when the jails are full, and the more prisoners the more money. This incentive for private prisons to maintain higher rates of incarceration ensures citizens equal protection from the poor as from those convicted of homicide. Fining those who don’t have money for not paying bail guarantees jail time. This relays the important message that rather than lazily sit in a cell all day, prisoners should find a full-time job, and learn to pay their own bail. Like a good parent, the operators of private prisons don’t tolerate the weak excuses of a misbehaving child (or in this case, prisoner). One operator recalled one of the worst excuses he had heard, and how he dealt with it: “Once a prisoner said to me that he couldn’t get a job, because he couldn’t apply since he was in jail, and couldn’t work since he had no chance of probation. I reminded him that our prison offers plenty of work opportunities and internships. He actually had the audacity to scoff at me and say that unpaid labor was useless to him. The entitlement of some of these men astounds me.”¹ As more lazy and impoverished people are found and put into prison, society’s streets become cleaned of any inconveniences. This benefits innocent citizens who shouldn’t have to pay for anyone else’s well-being through taxes, which are meant to be used only on the well-being of collective individuals with money.

These institutions also help the middle class (and what’s left of the lower class) avoid the deprivation of toys, by driving down prices with free labor. The cost basis of a product is significantly lessened when you don't have to factor in labor services as a cost, and private prisons allow for just that: a lessened cost through free prisoner labor. Not only does this minor exploitation provide major skill sets to prisoners, like knowing how to answer a phone, stitch lingerie, or pick oranges–a skill a few Florida prisons are generous enough to teach–but it also makes sure no child is deprived of a toy from Walmart. Not all prisons have adapted to this strategy, some pay excesses of  93￠or even up to $5.15.² But the progressive states like Florida and Texas are not held down by the economic inconvenience of conscience and can make the rational decision that helps to provide used Ikea furniture at the best prices.

Private prisons also ensure healthy laborers by refusing the indulgence of average food portions and providing prisoners protein by granting meals with just enough maggots for nutritional value.³ Food past its due date is also served, in order to strengthen the immune systems of inmates. Some prisons, such as one in Mississippi, even help increase happiness by providing free pets to prisoners for company, including rats and a wide variety of insects such as fruit flies.

Reducing the impoverished, keeping materials affordable, and providing irrefutable health benefits to prisoners are just a few of the services private prisons provide. These endless benefits are what make private prisons so unique and irreplaceable a system, one that deserves attention and protection against those who are unhealthily obsessed with constitutional rights.

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1 Quote is (obviously) fake in order to emphasize rhetoric of the impossibly paradoxical standards that prisoners are held to.^↩

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2 Initiative, Prison Policy. "Section III: The Prison Economy." Section 3 The Prison Economy - Prison Labor - Prison Index | Prison Policy Initiative. Prison Policy Initiative, n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016. ^↩

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3Tana Ganeva / AlterNet. "Maggots Keep Appearing in Food Prepared by Private Prison Food Vendor." Alternet. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016. ^↩

Broken

Old poem of mine I just found again:

When I change, I change too fast
One day a sentence can't help but make me laugh.
The next I read in far too deep
My eyes are bloodshot, I cannot sleep.
When I speak, I say too much
I hand over power to hurt without touch.
Soon I am wounded, cut, slashed
I loath the fire but light the match.
When I cry, I cry too long
I'm bitter but still claim that nothing is wrong.
I shudder and shiver and hide under sheets
I look back at letters, but lonely defeats.
When I laugh, I do not pause
Nobody knows insecure is the cause.
My dimples dent but my teeth still chatter
They don't think to check if anything's a matter.
When I'm depressed, and dying inside
"It's a teenager thing," those I share with all chide.
I hug my knees and sloppily dress
They think it's my style but I'm just a mess.

Invincible

Invincible. I thought you were Invincible.
The type I swore that I'd avoid, laughing at the naive girls who fell for that
But you weren't a category and I didn't know
I wasn't aware that you were art, that you were a million broken pieces
I could never sort into any stereotype I found in my books.

I thought I was unbreakable and worse, I thought you broke me
The walls I built and abuses I threw to try and protect my anticipated pain was just a paradox
A paradox that stole from me the happiness you gave and gave
I was the one that was naive.

My shitty poetry can't fix what I broke
These written words won't mend the fact that I was blinded to my faults,
That Letter was my heart and soul and still refused the words I owe.

You weren't invincible and I was stronger without my walls
You aren't perfect, sure
but you were perfect for me
I wish I had seen that
I wish I could fix this
I hope that you're happy
I'm glad that you're healthy
I wish you would need me
The way that I need you
I wish I could do more
Than type out three cliché words
I wish I could scream it
I wish I could whisper
I wish I could cry it
And say to your face

Your eyes are the ones that stare at me at night and I wish I could go back and do it all right
I wish I was strong enough to weaken myself
I wish I could sort out the words in my mind
I wish I could say what I think and be vulnerable about my intent
instead of the usual "fuck it"
followed with any insertation of a
guarded compliment

I loved you.
I think that I still do...I love you.

Darkest Time--a poem

Hey all! I know, long time no posts, but I'm in a show of current, and between that and homework I've little time for blogging...speaking of homework, here's a piece I wrote for an English project--it is based off the book Milkweed , by Jerry Spinelli , and is a letter in poem format to the main character, Misha.

Darkest Time

Tess Klingele

To Misha:

I looked upon the darkest time

Saw nothing of the light

All was hard and gray and cold

Peace called for a brutal fight.

Rainbow red

Made of bloodshed

And bombs of orange and yellow

Green a military suit

And blue the frozen fellow

From indigo and violet shown

Dark flowers by a grave

But you recolored my rainbow

And blossoming from ignorance

Bloomed the hope you gave.

When I looked upon the streets

I saw the Jackboot’s blade

Harsh, taunting, sharp and cruel

Yet you’d turned hate to a parade.

Child through your eyes I’ve seen

For you have shown me this

Don’t ever grow up too soon

For ignorance is bliss.

Cereal Box Vow

Cereal Box Vow
By: Tess Klingele
Little Margarite
Will you be my friend?
To have and to whisper to
To laugh and to vent
I do I do I do
need you...
So wander with me through the sunflower fields
Splash me at the fountains
but little Margarite
Don't leave me at the mountains
We'll climb 'em or we'll move 'em
Together work as one
That's what friends are for
in rain or in the sun
Take this plastic flower
as a token of my liking
know that I'll be with you
in lounging or in hiking
If we stick together
our adventures will never end
I'll even pinky promise
There
Now you may hug your friend
Oh! And little Margarite,
these devotions are just the start
I swear that I'll be with you
till adulthood do we part


*called Cereal Box Vow because I think of the "tokens of love" that little kids give each other, and they generally are plastic toys/cereal box finds. I think it is so adorable! This poem is dedicated to a friend of mine with a similar name...

Random Update

OK, OK, I'm sorry! I am a terrible person, I know. Oh, and a complete procrastinator. But still, I HAVE been busy(ish)....
anyways, here is some nothingness that is very pretty to look at.








Beautiful, right?



Anyways, this ought a pacify my nonexistent followers: a nouns poem from 7th grade ( it was homework, I'm not a TOTAL nerd)

Tess Klingele
7P, #15
11/9/12, Comm. Arts

My Favorite Nouns*

          Whipped cream on cocoa and paintings on canvas

 Dark stormy night times and long walks on campus

Thick creamy beige pages and white lace gowns

These are a few of my favorite nouns.

          Bright scented candles and wreaths decked with holly

Crackling fires and Christmas time folly

Bluebirds that chirp throughout life’s up and downs

These are a few of my favorite nouns.

          Splendid silk dresses with glossy ballet flats

Ribbons that tie on my waist and my felt hats

Classical singers with beautiful sounds

These are a few of my favorite nouns.

          When my throat aches

When my head pounds

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite nouns    

And then I don’t feel so bad.

Awww...cute, right?

(To the tune of My Favorite Things)

Lace Christmas

                I know, not the season...but I hate to have a post list clotted with drafts...
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Lace Christmas

I smell the scent of cutting cold and lovely Christmas spice
and the world begins to whisper of winter
as the clouds fill with knotted ice.

When at last the sky is greying
and white hairs streak its head
the branches, they are fraying
and the flowers nearly dead

The world begins whisper, it grows into a chant,
winter is a-coming
the snow will soon decant.

The clouds fill up with knotted ice,
they grind the glass to satin,
it sprinkles down like Christmas spice,
and the ground begins to fatten.

The world begins whisper, it grows into a chant,
winter is a-coming
the snow will soon decant.

The gnarled branches lose their youth
and the frost chills their trunks
carolers sing of Christian truths
and the ice falls down in chunks.

The world begins whisper, it grows into a chant,
winter is a-coming
the snow will soon decant.

Bright lights aglow surround my home
and children laugh and play  

I smile and sip hot chocolate foam

And wait for Santa’s sleigh.

The world begins to whisper
soft and sweet and low
look up at the sky, enjoy the falling snow!

Through New Eyes

Some choose to see the sea as water
I see it as a waterfall's kiss.

Some choose to find the fog a vapor
But I, a rainbow of sweet mist.

Some choose to call the dirt dry soil
I know it's truly golden earth.

Some choose to pass it as a fire place
but I christen it a feisty hearth.

The sunset streaked across the sky?
Why it's a child finger painting!

A wilting bunch of Queen Ann's Lace?
A lady in a corset fainting.

Seek earthly beauty and
the world will show it.

Now through new eyes,
I am a poet.

White Cat

This poem was actually a sixth grade literature assignment that I kept. It was my first poem that really seemed worth showing people outside my family. I recently found it and decided to add it just for fun. Hope you enjoy!

White Cat 

a poem based off of Gertrude Abercrombie's painting: White Cat

            The marshmallow cat crouches in a corner

Of a rainy sky and ivory colored room

The artist’s sudden movement freezes the cat like an icicle

 head slightly turned from the opal dyed vase on the table.

 The cat’s eyes stare blankly at the artist

as she tries to capture the expression of the cat onto the canvas’s pale body

with one of her many assortments of brushes

 this one thick as a broom.

The artist then turns to recreate the portrait clinging on to the otherwise blank wall

with the last of its aged strength.

 Slightly blurring the animal shown in a paper thin coat of oily paint

 a twinkle in her eye bright as the sun,

shows it is up to the viewer to guess whether or not the snow colored animal

 is the same one in the portrait as in the room she has painted, or some other.

 Afterwards having already drawn three sides of the portraits frame

she allows her ivory paint to leap off the brush

smothering vivid lines of white to the right side of the frame.

  Though the cat’s stone gray shadow on the wall proves the sun to be smiling

the spectator still yet wonders

if this white area of frame is a reflection of light

or perhaps just a mismatching block of wood

placed by accident into the ancient frame

something of which with nobody cared to bother.

As if not to disturb the cat

the artist’s strong and graceful brush dances

more discreetly on the charcoal shadow lines of the door.

Could she not want to distract the cat

into turning towards her hand once again?

Has she not yet painted the solemn thing’s shadow

 therefore pleading silently

for it not to shift position, or scoot around the floor?

 The lines and patterns of the leaping brush cannot but help make you question the events occurring at the time of this painting.

Perhaps she intended this to be so?

 Can an artist not paint in such a manner purposely

 as if questioning the future reaction?

The artist smiles

and as if to show she is pleased with the picturesque painting

  signs her last name

 Abercrombie

 officially admitting the masterpiece her own handiwork ready for show.

The cat rustles loud as a herd of cattle

 and obediently the artist open the door

 as if to say “yes, your work is done,” while the relived cat leaps out the door

 and disappears into the skinny and dark hallway.