Frankie Parris is a trans poet and author living in Penarth. Having performed at various poetry events in Cardiff to a warm and encouraging response, he has recently decided to pursue his writing more openly. Frankie writes mostly from personal experience, reflecting on his struggles with mental illness, queerness, love and relationships and acceptance of his identity as a trans man. Although most of his work is poetry, Frankie also has been working on a collection of short stories and hopes to explore all forms of writing, including plays and film writing.
Read Frankie’s creative response to his time on Representing Wales below.
Friday, Tŷ Newydd
I’ve seen the sky melt into the earth many times now. An indistinguishable image,
possibly projected, but too far in the distance to touch for proof.
I always imagined it to feel like stretched jelly,
something I could sink my fingers into but never break through.
Today I don’t feel I can peel the trees off the skyline. They stand in their own right.
I could probably climb them if I felt like it. Or more likely, rest my hands on their trunks and wonder how it would feel to not be so afraid of the fall.
Regardless of that though, it’s a change.
It’s funny how even a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to eat in front of strangers. Yet here I am, a bowl full of spaghetti later with a belly as warm as the room it was consumed in. And this sky? Harmless. That humid, grey wash of early summer would normally summon terror. I’d see all the feeling in me seeping out of my feet and fear the end was near again.
Nothingness, that’s my true fear.
Today though, it’s not nothing.
I still feel lost, unrooted.
But there is hope somewhere,
humming quietly in the shift of the season.
Today I sit in warm rain, watching the darkness creep in, but I’m not afraid.
My arms hang gently from my shoulders, slightly outstretched with palms open.
Well,
One palm is open.
The other is holding a cigarette but I know it would be open if I’d let it.
Change is happening, all the time.
In this moment, I neither welcome it nor resist it.
I’m letting it drip gently down my temples, grateful for reminding me of all I have lost,
all that I have and all that I hope to follow.
The rain is getting heavier and for maybe the first time, I realise I can stand up and take myself inside before it gets too much, before I get too wet, before the darkness takes control of the day. I can curl myself into a soft bed, slightly damp yes, but at peace with the fact the sun will rise again and that I may well wake up to hope again tomorrow, outstretched perhaps, dribbling on the pillow.