David Fekete

The three fates spin the thread of our life at birth

At times, so it seems with the life I know

Then, there are my choices

The threads I spun for myself:

The shock of working at a nursing home

Seeing the incapacitation

Drove me to drive myself in everything

I went all-out, all-in

My endeavor coursed through my ambition to achieve

And so, one thread

The intensity driving me drove me

Just to get by

When incapacitation overwhelmed me,

Overmedication disabled my abilities

“I can’t believe you could function,” my psychiatrist said

And so, one thread

Early aspiration realized late

Struggling to live out a livelihood dreamed of

In real time, in tension with tendentious intractable relations

Resolute in my own reality realizing my dreams

Despite detractors, determined

And so, one thread

Was it the thread spun by the three fates

At my birth?  Or spun by my own making?

In parallel universes I envision

Other roads I could have traveled by

Other doors opened, different possibilities, different choices

Other outcomes, other goals, other achievements

Other selves which could be me

Other lives I could live

Here I am, am who I am

In this life, spun by the three fates, or by me