I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked

One fig was a husband and a happy home and children,

and another fig was an artist, and another fig was a philosopher, 

and another fig was Italy, Tokyo and Brazil,

and another fig was Cleopatra and Socrates and Scheherazade 

and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions,

and another fig was an Oscar winning film director, 

and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out

I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest…

Inspired by The Bell Jar, written by Sylvia Plath during summer 1961