Doug Paul Case
All I Ever Wanted Was a Space Boyfriend
and damn it, Harry Kim should
have been it. Tell me a black Vulcan,
Latina Klingon, offworld-born Native
American, female captain, Holographic
doctor, Talaxian chef, and Asian
ops officer was one big coincidence.
Tell me they didn’t care about diversity.
Tell me Harry wasn’t supposed to be gay.
This was the ’90s. We had Lance Bass.
Why not. Tell me the producers weren’t
having a hard time holding on to
their young male demographic and
that’s why Harry “wasn’t.” But tell me
what a ’90s nerd loves more than
a space-faring gay always talking
about his mother, playing the clarinet,
and “trying really hard” to start
relationships with a string of unavailable
women when I would have dated him
and dated him hard. Disease-carrying
aliens. Holograms. Borg. The wrong twin.
Nobody gave a damn, nobody more
than the punch line to a bad Tom Paris
joke. Which is to say, all of them.
and damn it, Harry Kim should
have been it. Tell me a black Vulcan,
Latina Klingon, offworld-born Native
American, female captain, Holographic
doctor, Talaxian chef, and Asian
ops officer was one big coincidence.
Tell me they didn’t care about diversity.
Tell me Harry wasn’t supposed to be gay.
This was the ’90s. We had Lance Bass.
Why not. Tell me the producers weren’t
having a hard time holding on to
their young male demographic and
that’s why Harry “wasn’t.” But tell me
what a ’90s nerd loves more than
a space-faring gay always talking
about his mother, playing the clarinet,
and “trying really hard” to start
relationships with a string of unavailable
women when I would have dated him
and dated him hard. Disease-carrying
aliens. Holograms. Borg. The wrong twin.
Nobody gave a damn, nobody more
than the punch line to a bad Tom Paris
joke. Which is to say, all of them.
Doug Paul Case lives in Bloomington, where he recently received his MFA from Indiana University. His poems have appeared in Court Green, Hobart, Washington Square, and Redivider.