Franca Basta

Published on by Susi Bocks
white and pink flower in close up photography
Margareta Nemes – Unsplash

Peonies

The peonies blush,
gossiping and basking in
sun-kissed harmony.

Watermelons

Still
evenings.
Juicy fruit.
Slices passed round,
Each pip a story.
I listen in wonder.
Laughter, disbelief, shivers.
Friends gather in an inclusive
circle. Ice clinks in enamel jugs.
Slices of fruit, slices of times gone by.

Expectations

Yes!
Love it!
Thanks a lot!
What I wanted!
I walk out of the hairdressers and cry.

You know me too well

Who are you? Reading my private thoughts and
looking deep inside of me.
Who are you? Oh. It’s me.

*TRIGGER WARNING: CHILD ABUSE*

Innocence dies

Please stop.
Forget my room.
I don’t like your smell or
voice or skin or words or shape. Please
let me dream about fairies and chocolate.
I want my mummy’s arms.
Not yours. Not yours.
Please stop.

~~~

Franca has an English tongue and Italian gesticulation. She’s been featured in various flash fiction anthologies and creative writing sites but felt the need to turn her hand to poetry. She loves to write with humour but sometimes the dark side of life comes to the fore. Pasta and chocolate always help. This is Franca’s first feature on The Short of It.

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24 thoughts on “Franca Basta”

  2. I strongly believe the best health interests of all children — and not just what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — need to be of real importance to us all, regardless of how well our own developing children are doing. A physically and mentally sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. (Mindlessly minding our own business on such matters has too often proven humanly devastating.)

    If physically survived, emotional and/or psychological trauma from unhindered toxic abuse, sexual or otherwise, usually results in a helpless child’s brain improperly developing. If allowed to continue for a prolonged period, it can act as a starting point into a life in which the brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammation-promoting stress hormones and chemicals, even in non-stressful daily routines. It’s like a form of non-physical-impact brain damage.

    The lasting mental pain is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside one’s head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is treated with some form of medicating, either prescribed or illicit.

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  8. Pingback: Franca Basta — I Write Her | Art, Music, Photography, Poetry and Quotations

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