My Unauthorized and Unofficial Biography of the Known World (on the absurdity of mandatory introductions inevitably ignored by an industry that doesn't exist for you*)… 

I am supposed to engage with you,

become an effective communicator,

induct myself into every conversation 

even when I'm not welcome

Especially so

even when there is no audience

and there are no people.

I have no background introduction.

there is very little that is unique about me. 

I may or may not disclose that the real challenge is not killing yourself or completely giving up before you figure this out on your own. 

I don't actually make art for a living even though I wish I did.

Regardless of your personal feelings towards me, 

I will always tell you I am okay but I don't know what this means and I never did. 

(do you?)

I'm supposed to engage people in seven words or less.

keep them engaged through the destructive nomenclature of human language 

in search of universal understanding.

I have an elevator pitch in my breast pocket

for that magical moment we meet in the elevator

and I keep reading as you tell me your'e someone else. 

I return the note and diagnose

whether or not I'll obsess about this the rest of my natural life. 

I've written innumerable elavator pitches for elevators and non-elevators alike,

for not teasing me on the bus, for pretending to be my friend. 

all facts about me are free of charge and searchable

and undermine my existence in some way
 

like a foreign occupation, means of keeping peace 

intimately invading every piece of me like white noise and pink noise and being buried in sand for 1000 years. 

all facts about me are actually fictional but you won't care enough to know this until you forget who I am. 

everything about me is fictional because it has to be,

because it's who you want me to be and are told it's how I live with myself

I'll write the same fiction several times a year until it becomes true and you are full of wonder

and childlike, confused, cosmically balanced in every way.

speak strictly in the 3rd person

be pure and objective in recalling my history, 

precise, surgical, poetic with all descriptions, all the time, always. 

I'm writing this for you, but I don't know who are or if I'll ever know you. 

I"m supposed to provide you with everything you ever needed to feel complete yourself

even when I am ampty

and even if you don't exist. 

*(this is a poem (sort of) on the catch-22 of self disclosure (a question with no wrong answers that you'll be asked to complete repeatedly over the course of a lifetime about a subject that is definitevely personal, but will also be required to fulfill specific conditions of the social landscape at the time the assignment is given.) The majority of this is based on different feedback I've received from variations of this assignment in my personal as well as professional life. However, despite my sentiments on the topic, I honestly feel that these words are the most honest and accurate representation of myself that I could give you without also giving my life story. Peace <3