Witch-Wife by Vincent Millay

Blog hopping. it's that shot in the arm of thinking about something new. Today, the challenge is to write a 100 word piece of fiction inspired by the quote "She learned her hands in fairy tales" from the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem Wife-Witch.

I've read the poem and frankly, I don't completely understand it. I've looked through the great cheat-sheet of our age, the internet and have come up dry. I get the gist of the poem. I get the beauty of the language. It is this one line that leaves me unsure.

Vincent Milley led the bohemian life I would have never had the confidence to live. She had many lovers of both sexes which I know was shocking at the turn of the last century. She was successful as a poet at the age of 22.

It is the 22 that amazes me. To have such a presence of mind.  We write our lives directly and indirectly. Where does this worldly experience come from?

When I started writing, I had a huge regret that I had not started when I was younger. Essentially I have spent my life avoiding a huge glittering piece of myself. I met a new friend who is a starving artist. Some of that regret has faded.

What frustrated me most as a human being is packing that part of myself away.

I come from poor whites. I understand white trash. It's just easy to give up when life kicks you. My first packing away came as a young adult. I had to walk the walk of a conservative mainstream person to be accepted as a teacher. It wasn't hard in that I am a cautious, conservative person. It's just that I have this loud, creative part of myself that I had to stifle.

When I went to college, adults at my church would say "How can you do this to your parents?" It was the expense factor. My parents wanted me to go to college, to better myself. I can say I worked and paid for roughly half of my education. My dad chose my major and refused to fill any financial aid forms out. He didn't like taking government money.

My dad had my best interests at heart. Plus majoring in biology was a lot better than working at the Waffle House. Dad wanted me to be a dentist. I just wasn't there academically. Knowing what I know now. I would have made it into dental school. I would have like to have been a doctor.

As a writer, I don't regret my life experiences. Like everyone, I would have made better choices along the way.

To http://chaoticallyyours.blogspot.com/2014/06/saturday-shorts-10.html , thanks for the prompt. I would have never taken the time to review Vincent Millay's poetry without the prompt.

The poem Witch-Wife by Edna St. Vincent Millay    

She is neither pink nor pale,
    And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
    And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
    In the sun ‘tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
    Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can, 
    And her ways to my ways resign; 
But she was not made for any man,  

And she never will be all mine. 

I got the text from this link    http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/witch-wife