Outside

I am always on the outside; I keep to the outside.

It's freedom and it's isolation - wanting to be included but staying aloof.

It's a choice and a rejection and I can never be sure which came first and begot the other, or if they are like two sides of the same coin, entwined so completely one could not separate them into their many parts. It must be of many parts because composition is never one thing and another, singularly, rather, always: one thing and many others all interdependent, holding each other up while keeping each other down.

So every time I linger on the edge of something - parties, work events, flickr photo groups and work discussions - I wonder who I'm waiting for permission from, while knowing that it's only me and my dance with rejection ~ staying safe in isolation and pondering the hazard of committing to participation.