R Is for Restless - Christine Hamm - "Eventually, you stop shivering."

R Is for Restless

Palm Beach, a fake emerald bracelet scratching your wrist.

You crawl to the bed, the industrial carpet rubbing its cigarette stink all over you. You remember the man’s hands, the scars and words scrawled across them.

A wilted yellow carnation on the nightstand. Your ruffled dress with pink and black diamonds sprawled across a chair. A ceiling full of tiny stabbed-in holes.

The damp circle your body makes on the sheets dissipates. Eventually, you stop shivering.

______

BY: Christine Hamm. “R Is for Restless” was first published in Cleaver, 2013, and is included in Christine’s chapbook, A Is for Absence, published by the New Orleans Review in 2014. 

For more on Christine Hamm, visit her website.