Show me what you know

First attempt as quiz format poetry

Questions 1: What do you see when you close your eyes?

A) A woman kneels naked, her back to me. Smoke curls up from her shoulder blades, black and suffocating. I can her hear moaning in pain and it sounds like the song my mother used to sing me to sleep. The wind carries forgotten prayers that press themselves into my skin and freezes my bones. I can only watch, helpless, as fire spreads across her, hot tongues tasting their way down her spine. Consuming her. I blink, and all that is left of her is ash.

B) The sunrise is a gentle thing. And yet every time you watch that blood red light, you imagine that it is your own veins spilled across the horizon. You split yourself open a thousand times a day and there is a little voice in your head reminding you how fucked up you are. Reminding you that this self-destruction is not beautiful. And yet the quiet violence of your own bleeding heart is the only thing you can think about most days.

C) The floor has been ripped away and we are free falling. The wind whipping past us steals away our screams until we are left with nothing but our beating hearts clenched in trembling fists. Don't squeeze too hard or I'll be dead before I hit the ground.

D) I saw that you were bleeding and offered you my heartstrings to stitch the wound. You tied them into a noose and kept them in your pocket. “Just in case,” you said. How was I to know that you never felt like yourself unless you were bleeding?

Question 2: Answer true or false.

It takes eight minutes for light from the sun to reach the earth. In those eight minutes I manage to convince myself that your fingers trace my spine to remind yourself that I am still here; it's not to test which vertebrae you'd like to tear out next. I'm more than just a puzzle you're itching to take apart. For those eight minutes, I can pretend.

Question 3: If your car is hurtling down the highway at ninety miles per hour, how do I convince you not to drive yourself off of the overpass? Answer in three or more sentences.

Answer: You are a million mismatched pieces trying to fit into skin that is shaped too tight. And you've never had a real example of what a whole person looks like. You keep tearing yourself apart to try and find a new way to fit your bones together. I'm just trying to make sure that you don't leave any pieces behind.

Question 4: Complete the following statements.

On December 26, 2015, you told me that ___________.
I read a thousand books on love but none of them ever showed me __________.
Sometimes I wonder what you love more: me or ______________.

Answers:
I tasted like starlight dipped in kerosene. You wanted to catch fire on my tongue.
How to dig myself out of your ribcage. I don't want to leave, but I should know it anyways. Just in case.
The way that I cradle your teeth in my palm like pennies. I use them at phone booths once a week to call your mother. It's the only way she knows that your still alive. I'm down to the last four molars, and I wonder which will run out first; you always used to say that you felt like you had more teeth than time.