---
title: epigraph
subtitle: "– Sylvia Plath"
genre: prose

id: epigraph
toc: "_epigraph_"

project:
    title: Elegies for alternate selves
    class: elegies
    order: 1
    next:
    - title: How to read this
      link: howtoreadthis
    prev:
    - title: Death's Trumpet
      link: deathstrumpet
...

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 and another fig was a brilliant professor,
and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor,
and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America,
and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of [other lovers][] and queer names and offbeat professions,
and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.
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.

[other lovers]: spittle.html
[death]: deathstrumpet.html
[green fig tree]: peaches.html