Too Old for Doctor by Max Kruger-Dull

my leg on his hand

My boyfriend is naked on the couch, high, and I still don’t know what it’s like to be high and I rub my leg on the back of his hand and wish I was rubbing my leg on his palm. 

my chin on his hip

I bounce my chin on his hip, bone slapping bone, wishing my bone was slapping his bone, but it’s skin slapping skin, which feels too common, which feels not us. I think of us as two who don’t need skin, not with each other. My chin will bruise him. He doesn’t pat the top of my head like I like.

my lips near his ear

My lips have never touched my boyfriend’s ear and they still don’t today. But I do whisper: “We’ll go to the bank soon.” I sound so sexy. We have deposits to make. I whisper: “I put our checks on the fridge.” My boyfriend appreciates adult behavior. I blow into his ear and he swirls his head like I stuck a tornado in his skull. 

again, my leg on his hand

I rub my leg on the back of his hand like I’m rubbing my leg on his dick. I sometimes forget that I have a dick too, that he could rub his leg on the back of my hand, or on my palm, or on my dick. Whenever I rub my boyfriend’s dick, I feel like I’m touching a picture in a magazine. The world has never felt real to me. My dick has never felt real to me. 

my thumb on his wrist

I check his pulse with my thumb even though he looks conscious. I found pulses with my thumb as a kid playing doctor. Then I put my thumb and his wrist against my ear. Then my thumb and his wrist and my ear against his thigh. Then my thumb and his wrist and my ear and his thigh against my knee. I sing, “The green grass grows all around, all around…” “You’re annoying,” my boyfriend whispers. 

my toe on his teeth

I rub my toe on his teeth. His teeth look linty after. “You’re a child,” my boyfriend whispers.

my hand over his eyes, which blink

When my boyfriend blinks into my palm, I feel I can catch his eyeballs. I say, “To the market after the bank.” He says, “Get high with me.” He puts his lit blunt between my fingers like his eyeball is going to smoke. I’ve seen cartoons like that as a kid. I sink off the couch like a kid. I put out the blunt and crawl on the floor. Before I get far, he puts his hand on my ankle but I kick him away. I’m not sure why I’m crawling. He doesn’t crawl after me, or walk after me. I feel small. I sit beneath the kitchen table and hum. There’s gum under here, left over from the last time I wanted to be a child. 

Max Kruger-Dull holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Litro Magazine, Roanoke Review, Quarterly West, The MacGuffin, and others. He lives in New York with his boyfriend and two dogs. For more, please visit maxkrugerdull.com. 

7 July 2023