Being Captain Kirk
All I ever wanted to be is Captain Kirk.
I know I’m a girl.
This has nothing to do with sex or any gay feelings.
This has to do with power.
My parents fought a lot when I was young.
They didn’t pay much attention to me or what I did.
So I spent a lot of time in front of the TV with the volume up, trying to drown out the angry voices.
I avoided the kids’ shows because they always went on and on about how nice everybody was.
They wanted me to sing silly songs and believe in things that weren’t real.
I surfed through the channels instead of the loudest most violence programs I could find, trying to pretend the beatings I heard in the other room were part of the sound track.
Then I stumbled on Star Trek, and I hated it at first.
It wasn’t real enough for me.
Yet each time I surfed past it, I lingered a little longer.
I wasn’t attracted to the violence – though it had about as much as most other shows.
I was attracted to Kirk.
He seemed so much in control of his universe; I could not help but admire him, especially since I had so little control over my own.
As a girl, I should have been taken with one of the female characters.
But they seemed too weak to me.
Maybe I should have liked Spock since his character was more girl-like than any of the other men.
Girls I met later adored him.
But he controlled only himself where as Kirk controlled everything.
When my father beat my mother, I would think: Kirk wouldn’t put up with that. He would fight back.
When my father beat me, I kicked and screamed until he stopped.
When I got a little older and my father got other ideas in his head, I warned him to behave or else.
Then he went and crept into my bed one night.
I thought: “What would Captain Kirk do?”
That’s why I grabbed the scissors.
That’s why I stabbed my father in the chest.
And the only reason I’m in trouble now is because I’m not Captain Kirk.
I only wish I was.