(without a title)

l'amore fa passa 'o tiempo e 'o tiempo fa passa il'amore.

Borriello was the name given to her to designate the family that she belonged to from birth, but from an early age Francesca knew she belonged to no one, no one person, no one family, she is her own creature entirely, she moves with the wind and with the waves, wildly and freely. Yet, she grew up in a certain environment, with certain people to characterize her. Naples is her home, her kingdom, her playground, she reigns supreme in these neighborhoods. She gossips like a Neapolitan woman, she loves in the very same way they do here and it is from a position of inherent Neapolitanness that she interacts with the world. Known by most only as Francesca (her family name long since faded into indifference), she remains the very heart and soul of Naples.

As she grew from child to woman, Francesca discovered a vast love within herself, an inexhaustible lust for existence itself and an open heart towards others, it is a romantic love, of course, but bound to a sexual desire that also seems in its own way unfailing. Although she takes many lovers, men and women both, it is womankind that she's developed a softness for, a taste. Perhaps it's the all-girl Catholic school that her parents had her attend which has shaped her likings, perhaps it's the soft shapes and soft words of other women throughout her life, she doesn't think in reasons, she thinks in inclinations. Francesca doesn't judge, least of all herself.

Therefore, she doesn't like going to Mass, she hates the insides of the cathedral, all the saints, all the holies cut in stone, they're dead, they're lifeless, devoid of heat and spark and light. The candles people lit manage only to force the darkness another step or two back, there it lurks and lingers and waits. Yet she attends Mass every Sunday, like a relatively good Catholic girl of two relatively good Catholic parents, she sits with them on one of the wooden benches and later, she eats at their dinner table, too, Sunday festivities implying mostly new gossip about the neighborhood's many names. Later still, she retires and she retreats to her special spot at the beach, near enough to the ocean that it might very well eat her alive, but only then is she living fully, yes. Wholly. She plays the guitar for an hour, maybe two, track is not something she keeps. Close to her chest. She plays tunes out of a tango-dancing dream, she plays aggressively and seductively and she plays in every way unlike a relatively good Catholic girl, but she is no Holy Virgin, she is not made of stone.

She is made of the burn left behind on the evening sky by the setting sun. She is made of the zing from lemons and oranges. She is made of exhalations, sighs and gasps, the sounds of life. Oh, she is made of living material.

love makes time pass and time makes love pass.