Originally published in 2022 as part of The Red Shirt Review, a Star Trek poetry zine by The Daily Drunk, ed. Robin Sinclair.
Skin: solid, cool. Space: empty. Stars: distant gaping holes.
Ship: departing. I could tell you exactly how fast.Name: wrong. Name: wrong. Name: wrong. Name:
father of secrets and lies. Name: desired one.
Name: warmth deep in the pit of the chest.Spinal circuits: twitching. Cold: intruder. Logic: lonely.
Precepts: circling vultures. Self: fissure. Self: wrong-tongued.I could tell you exactly how fast you are leaving.
To ten decimal points. I'll tell you whatever you want.Flesh: the softness of the voice. Voice: the fullness of the throat.
I tried to know and touch her; the skin tore clean apart.
If you haven't seen the episode in question, it's about an ancient space probe called Nomad that mistakenly thinks Kirk is its inventor/dad. Turns out that Nomad's original mission got garbled after a collision with an alien probe, and now it seeks to sterilise any imperfect life-forms. It accidentally erases Uhura's memory trying to find out what music is, kills some people, and attempts to accelerate the Enterprise beyond what the ship can handle. Kirk argues that Nomad itself is imperfect, then essentially tells it to kill itself. They transport it into space, where it blows up. I felt so powerfully sad after watching this episode.
(Oddly enough, on a rewatch, it didn't hit me the same way at all. I thought it was just okay. I guess writing the feeling down purged it from my body. Funny how these things go.)
I once read this at an exhibition & poetry sharing event held in an abandoned factory (to this day the coolest thing I have ever been to). The acoustics were amazingly good; the echoes made my voice sound full and sharp and not-quite-human. I remember leaning into it, trying to keep my movement as stilted and robotic as possible.
It's a real pity that The Red Shirt Review isn't readable anymore. There was some fantastic work in there, which I haven't been able to track down elsewhere. Please do get in touch if you have any leads!