{"id":6024,"date":"2026-04-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/?p=6024"},"modified":"2026-03-31T23:40:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T04:40:36","slug":"waking-in-the-night-thinking-of-having-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/waking-in-the-night-thinking-of-having-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"Waking In the Night Thinking of Having Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">Ignorance remains<br>the steadiest path to mistakes\/errors<br>\u201chey I didn\u2019t know\u201d is slightly<br>superior to \u201cI was drunk\u201d, or that<br>chestnut, \u201cit was a long time ago,<br>things were different then\u201d.<br>Don\u2019t fall for it.<br>To hit your kids is as wrong<br>in 1970 as it is today, as<br>wrong as princes in the tower<br>or cigarette burns on a toddler\u2019s back.<br><br>Night, the anger rises.<br>Rage, rage, rage against the<br>Perceived slights of today,<br>not paid enough, not promoted,<br>night shift chain smoking<br>by the hour, this job deserves a<br>walk out, but to where?<br><br>Later, a hit down, swing low<br>to meet your self esteem,<br>those little shits need to learn<br>to shut up.<br>Survey the wounded.<br>Bathroom door, photo frames,<br>dog cowering by the door.<br>Patch the sheetrock, make<br>apologies with pizza, toys.<br><br>Research reveals that the abused<br>so often become abusers in turn.<br>Poor fools, quick to anger and<br>quick to self delusion. Poor excuses.<br>Social Services knows your family name.<br>The same smile, bad teeth,<br>good with their hands.<br>That one was a star athlete.<br>Dark rivers run strongest at night<br>as owls regard the trailer with<br>wide, wide eyes while the moon,<br>Uncle Moon, looks away.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ignorance remainsthe steadiest path to mistakes\/errors\u201chey I didn\u2019t know\u201d is slightlysuperior to \u201cI was drunk\u201d, or thatchestnut, \u201cit was a long time ago,things were different then\u201d.Don\u2019t fall for it.To hit your kids is as wrongin 1970 as it is today, aswrong as princes in the toweror cigarette burns on a toddler\u2019s back.Night, the anger rises.Rage, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"art_contributors":[],"literary_contributors":[400],"class_list":["post-6024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","literary_contributors-stephens-travis"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6025,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6024\/revisions\/6025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6024"},{"taxonomy":"art_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/art_contributors?post=6024"},{"taxonomy":"literary_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/literary_contributors?post=6024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}