PS-I just read your comment above. This poem isn't about blame in the same way that the sentence "Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen molecules, but you're gay" isn't about gayness. It's about water.

You must be always giving yourself swirlies in the locker room.

Haven't you already been berated about this this year?

Weighted score uses the idea that the more people vote on a poem, the more its true ranking shows. Say you post a poem and the first vote on it is a 10. Then your unweighted average is 10 and you're the best poem on poemranker. Now say another 298 people vote 10 on your poem and one person votes 9. Now your unweighted average is 9.997 and someone who's just posted a poem and gotten one 10-vote beats you. Supposedly, the weighted average becomes closer to the true average the more people vote for you, though I have my doubts about nentwined's math. If you're interested (or Indian), the formula is

WEIGHTEDAVERAGE = 5+((avg-5)/(1+e^(3-votes/3)))

Then you see what the problem is. For another example, I wouldn't write a poem called "I Love an 8-year-old Girl", although my wife certainly was one at one point. At worst, I would write "I Love a Grown Woman Who Was Once an 8-year-old Girl". Which means something totally different.

The obvious answer to all this is, Jesus loved Mary when she was a prostitute and nothing He did was wrong. My answer to that is, That's exactly right.

Yes, I understand that. As far as Mary Magdalene goes, I'll go ahead and guess you love the redeemed Mary Magdalene, and not Mary Magdalene while she was actually whoring. I don't think it's fair to call her a prostitute after her redemption.

Supposing you DO love the unredeemed Mary Magdalene - well, I just don't think you can love someone whom you want to redeem. I think that means you love some idea of what she or he will become, and not the person as she or he is. You're welcome to disagree. That's also one of my biggest problems with Christianity - probably coming from the Christian belief in a soul that somehow exists above and uncomplicit in sin. Like THE REAL MAGDALENE is a nice, beautiful person just kind of floating around while the Unreal, Earthly Magdalene does all this whoring. I just don't buy it. Like I said, feel free to disagree.

That's odd. You'd think if I were 18 I'd have denied being 26, a disgraceful age if there ever was one.

Of course, what it really comes down to is, I've currently acheived the happiness I grew up thinking I was entitled to. Can you say that?

You're right. How could I have missed such a big part of our conversations?

DOVINA: You're getting off topic.

ZODIAC: I think that about covers it.

It's good you find budding appreciation. I've been trying to project a certain wry ambivalence tinged with disgust.

PS-Can I ask you a question? Do you believe - that is, will you say, today, irrespective of past conversations - that the black race is the most different from the white race? Imagine if you will a blank slate. Yes, I'm letting previous topics go, but you have to admit we didn't seem to be getting anywhere on those. The new topic is the question posed above.

You've been here long enough to know when -=Dark_Angel=-,P.I. says 'I'm racist' he really means 'you're racist.' No excuses for not getting that one.

Yeah, I know. I just said it wasn't her best, which is true. In my opinion, her best is either "Math Poem 3" or "Returning".

Oh, I also said Dovina's poetry about snooty poets not being in touch with the world is crap. You're perfectly free to say I just think so because I'm a snooty poet.

Now I'll say I admit to being elitist. Elites tend, on average, to be better than Sorries at many things I deem important. That's why they're elites.

It's shameful. She comes from Tennessee, but obviously one of the all-white parts. Now she lives in the most segregated state in America - California.

Yeah, so basically if you're holding your breath for people without prejudice or dirty slang, you're going to asphyxiate. Besides, everyone knows black people's personalities are pathological, so it's not their fault. What's whitey's excuse? He was trying to be like black people.

Everything I've done I've done either by incurring huge expense or commiting myself to dozens of things I wasn't ready for and only being halfway decent at any of them. If I had it to do again, I'd join the army.

PS-AlChemy's comment above is really good. Please pay attention to it.

That aside, I'm with richa. Precocious.