Self-Portrait as 16 Personalities: Free Personality Test

Genevieve Watson — California, United States

1. You regularly make new friends.

It was freshman year. It was a party at the minigolf place. It was

a spine cracking over and over, putters against balls. It was sunny.

It was a porcelain girl waving hello. It was my eyes running out of tears.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

2. Your living and working spaces are clean and organized.

Sometimes I make fallen angel silhouettes on the floor with dirty

laundry, let the unwashed dishes watch like circus spectators. I call it

tranquility. My mother prefers depression, unnatural tendencies, etc.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

3. You usually stay calm, even under a lot of pressure.

It’s worse in autumn. This one kid from downtown jumped off

the sixth street viaduct before I learned his name. On the bus, I kept

thinking about the riverbed’s stillness—all concrete and dried up.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

4. You rarely feel insecure.

I’m an orange. Buy me. Peel off my skin. Pull apart my simple units

one by one. I am so, so ordinary. Chew me. Swallow me whole. Spit

me out. Inside, you’ll find only melting ice cream, little birds.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

5. People’s stories and emotions speak louder to you than numbers or data.

In history class, a loud girl slammed my fingers in the door to tell me

war purifies this world. I didn’t (couldn’t) respond but that night

little corpses with my grandmother’s eyes danced across the bed frame.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

6. You are prone to worrying that things will take a turn for the worse.

It used to be tsunamis. Now, it’s that apple-green swallowtail on shivering

pine needles, it skip-hop-skip-hops low across the foliage because

like every animal, it’s already growing sick, already losing flight.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

7. You are still bothered by mistakes that you made a long time ago.

I was seven. M. had saved me a spot in the lunch line. She was thin

and blond and when I hugged her from behind a stranger tensed

against me instead. I’ve looked, but I never ended up finding M.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

8. Your emotions control you more than you control them.

As a child, I cried over everything. I cried over my mother opening

the garage door on a Wednesday instead of a Tuesday. I cried

over the feel of my hair being brushed. I cried over the sound of highways.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

9. You avoid making phone calls.

Because it’s easier to let everything in me snap a thousand times

over. Maybe if I snap and tear and bloody them up enough, the pleas

will turn into a sound that’s almost right. They never do.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

10. You are drawn to various forms of creative expression, such as writing.

I am drawn to shape of fingernails, depressed mothers, upside-

down forest groves. I am drawn to sugary rotten voices, to whatever

the church wants to burn this time. (See Question #9.)

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

11. You often allow the day to unfold without any schedule at all.

Sometimes, I want to wake up at noon to lie down in the sun

and wake up again on a seabed in the Pacific. Then I catch myself

wanting. Instead, I rise at dawn and drink a glass of icy water.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

12. You prioritize being sensitive over being completely honest.

A mean boy pulled a plant out of a drain in preschool. I screamed

and hit him until Mrs. Marcy pulled me away and called my parents.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

13. Your mood can change very quickly.

I dragged a Snickers bar from between my sister’s teeth, spit it into

her lap to finish the act. For a moment, we both felt the urge to laugh

to end it. But we're stubborn, so we scowled and didn’t talk until evening.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

14. You often feel overwhelmed.

I wish you would ask me a question.

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

15. You feel confident that things will work out for you.

[...]

Agree    1     2     3     4     5     Disagree

[Results]

[Please add up each response and refer to the appropriate range for your results]

66-75:

You are probably a liar. You hide your sick mother’s worn down shoes under

the bed before she leaves for work. Go on, tell me what it feels like to hide.

56-65:

You are the circus high wire. You are the perfect performance. You are

the burn, the loved, the envied. You are the balancing act I always topple.

46-55:

You are probably honest and probably smart and probably look like that

sugary girl with bottomless eyes. My favorite wish, far too good for me.

36-45:

You are the face at the window, working a lock that will never undo itself for

you. Tie your shoes, step outside. Can’t you see? They aren’t meant for us.

26-35:

You hate your father but not enough to forget the curl of his lips. Like him.

you tell yourself you're still floating with the water curling at your mouth.

15-25:

So you’re scared of mean boys and bad girls, and fight your sister over candy.

You think too much and talk too little and cry over butterflies. Isn’t it strange,

finding each other?

All questions in this poem were quoted from the MBTI 16 personalities test (https://tinyurl.com/2dxun747)