{"id":6045,"date":"2026-04-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/?p=6045"},"modified":"2026-04-01T22:59:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T03:59:24","slug":"tick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/tick\/","title":{"rendered":"Tick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse has-text-align-left\">             <em>Sobriety: Day 0<\/em><br><br>I don\u2019t know why this time was different<br>other than time, air &amp;amp; light that it is, was<br>filling less of me. For fifteen years I was a tick<br>that if pulled would pucker the skin before<br>the neck severed, head still buried and sucking<br>a last second or two, unaware the wine-red<br>blood had nowhere to go.<br><br>The Rioja In the back of the pantry had aged<br>since our first year of marriage. Like equity<br>and intimacy, so easy early on, we\u2019d kept it wrong.<br>So when we opened the vinegar it had become,<br>you stopped at a glass while I finished the bottle.<br>On principle, I told myself. Tomorrow<br>I\u2019m quitting. I\u2019m quitting tomorrow.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sobriety: Day 0I don\u2019t know why this time was differentother than time, air &amp;amp; light that it is, wasfilling less of me. For fifteen years I was a tickthat if pulled would pucker the skin beforethe neck severed, head still buried and suckinga last second or two, unaware the wine-redblood had nowhere to go.The Rioja [&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":[470],"class_list":["post-6045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","literary_contributors-rutter-chad"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045","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=6045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6047,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions\/6047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6045"},{"taxonomy":"art_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/art_contributors?post=6045"},{"taxonomy":"literary_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/literary_contributors?post=6045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}