In The Fig Tree

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 a famous poet. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

-Plath, Sylvia

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