I Will Never Be in Doctor Who

by L. A. Christensen

I will never be in Doctor Who

I feel it every time I watch

The companions are always someone who thinks fast

And runs faster.

I will never be in Doctor Who

I feel it every time I watch

The Doctor only collects one kind of brave,

One kind of clever,

One kind of curious.

I will never be in Doctor Who

I feel it every time I watch

My face shows nothing of my illness

My body displays nothing of my disability

I have no wheels to explain my difference

To an audience that never understands.

I will never be on Doctor Who

I feel it every time I watch

At show’s end I pick up the remote and turn off the TV

I imagine the episode that could have been:

A morning walk through a TARDIS full of twists and turns

A breakfast curled up with a novel lost to time

An afternoon stroll through a market fragrant with alien fruit

A mystery to be solved with quiet stubbornness and kindness

A Doctor who listens, and—by experience—knows pain and loss and wonder

Who knows the horror of boredom, the fear of standing still,

The drive to explore whatever’s in reach, no matter what stands in the way.

I imagine adventures at every port

Then days spent resting in between

Not dismissed as trivial or uninteresting.

I wonder at alien spas and libraries, medieval jousts and troubadours.

I consider pets.

I remember tears.