This week’s Jukebox prompt is Woodstock, and I don’t want to write it.

But I don’t want to lose my streak either.

Sometimes calling yourself a perfectionist sounds like a humble-brag. And I feel like some people might mean it that way.

But it’s not.
Not over here in Turtle Meat Land, anyway.

Perfectionism is exhausting.
It’s the residual of a life lived ducking
and bracing
and figuring it out on my own.

Perfectionism is a flaw, plain and simple, and I’m not proud of it.

I’m afflicted by it.

So, anyway—I caught myself thinking about half-assing it.

And I don’t love that phrase. Not because it’s not accurate, but because it sounds like I don’t care about the Jukebox, or , or any of it.

And that’s not it.
Not atall.

So let’s call it something else.
Let’s just say right now, I’m not doing this half-assed…
I’m doing it low stakes style.

I’ve had this low-level hum of anxiety the past few days, and it reminds me of the old days—when that hum was just… the background noise of my life.

But this doesn’t feel like it’s that.
At least, I hope not.

There are a few culprits I could point to. A few neat little explanations I could wrap this in.

I’ve got a live reading coming up—my brain says it’s fine, but my body is still clocking the danger. And yes, let’s just gloss over the fact that I even told y’all about that.

I’m doing some leveling up, and it’s kind of public.

There’s been some interpersonal ambiguity bubbling in the background.

I’ve been consistent for a long stretch—and that? That’s not exactly my MO, and it’s quietly raising the stakes.

But I also know this anxiety could be due to any number of things.

Or nothing.

But my brain wants to make sense of it—stat. And in the meantime, it’s like:

hey… maybe ease up a little
maybe don’t do the thing that keeps putting us out there

And I know that voice.

I’ve been down this road before.

So hopefully, this is just a visit.
Not a return. Just… a little smog rolling in.

And hopefully, it lifts soon—

and I can make it back to the garden—
or at least a place where the hum goes quiet.

Here’s the mixtape.

Woodstock — Joni Mitchell
Fast Car — Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs
Use Somebody — Kings of Leon
Shake the Frost — Tyler Childers
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right — Bob Dylan (we’ll get there)
This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) — The Lumineers
(because does this song just fit every aspect of my life or what)

Southern Writers Guild

First Light

My novel - First Light - is being featured here at the Guild for 4 weeks. This is Week 3…

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4 days ago · 8 likes · primalbeet

Stories from the Jukebox

Woodstock

Calling all Poets, Fiction, or Non-Fiction writers and readers that love music — Subscribe now…

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6 days ago · 14 likes · 4 comments · MJ Polk

I saw a Hallmark movie once where the girl made a New Year’s resolution to say “yes” to everything. Or maybe it was “not to say no.” Just until her birthday in February. And for some weird reason I feel like her birthday may have even been the same day as mine—but I bet I’m remembering that wrong. But it was close. Either way, she was the kind who would overthink, say no to a lot, and who just… floated through life in protective gear.

I don’t remember the logistics of the whole thing. I think it may have just been “yes” to social invitations... I mean she wouldn’t have to jump off a building or anything but she did jump in an icy lake in January. So I mean, there were parameters. But still.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.

But I guess I did this year.

I started saying yes to a lot more, recently. Not just to requests and invites. Sometimes I said yes to me. And then sometimes? I even went out in search of things to say yes to.

And I’m not saying it’s going great.
Not at all.
See, here’s the part they don’t show you in the movies.

In the movie, she says yes. She takes the leap. She jumps in the icy lake in January and comes up laughing. Life opens up. Things fall into place. It all works out better than she imagined.

That’s not what this has been.

The first thing I said yes to?

It broke my heart.

Honestly, no one would’ve blamed me if I stopped and turned around right there.

They would’ve said, yeah… that one was rough. Not fair. Not the way it was supposed to go.
Go on back inside. Get under your blanket. You tried. You really did.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I let that failure launch me into more… failures.

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I’ve been accused of looking at things… optimistically.
Incorrectly, even.

And maybe that’s true.

But still—
I think it might turn out right.

There have not been any big triumphant victories yet. No clean upward arc.

Just more chances to be scared. More things that haven’t gone to plan. More moments where I thought, okay, this is the part where I finally learn my lesson and go back to no.

But I didn’t do that either.

I decided to take the show on the road. To Minnesota. (Seriously, it’s more exciting than it sounds.)

But flying alone.
Strange town.
Terrifying logistics.

Setting this up hasn’t been easy.

Plans have changed.
So many times.
Travel companions have, too.
Prices went up.
And tension.
And nerves.

Misunderstandings.
Things I can’t control.
Issues that are not mine to settle.
The threat of someone being removed from The Will.

What I’m saying is this has not gone smoothly.

But for some reason, I thought I was due.
I’m going in July.

And. I finally got tired of not being able to carry a tune or sing a song... or so I thought. It hit me one day that I could do something about it. And so I started voice lessons. Funny thing is, I’d been told all my life I had a terrible voice, but on the first lesson? I matched pitch on every note.

Let’s not talk about the third lesson where I forgot to breathe and ran out of breath on Happy Birthday.

It’s been a bumpy ride. My lessons are supposed to be every Monday night at 6PM. However, my voice coach has soccer games with her kids about as often as I have something else pop up on a Monday night. So we’ve skipped as many lessons as we’ve had.

But we’ll get there.

I am mostly remembering to breathe.

I’m still scared of the high notes.

And she keeps trying to take me higher.

Then there’s Portugal. Y’all. If you know me, you know that in the past, the question wouldn’t even been out of my friend’s mouth before I would have been shaking my head no absolutely not. I’m just not into flying over oceans. It doesn’t seem natural. Or safe.

But.

I said yes.

Like with a quickness.
Like before I knew what I was doing.

And this was after I’d just taken my first bike ride, after (cough cough) how ever many years, when I hadn’t even been sure at the beginning that my feet could leave the ground and hop up on the pedals. But now, all of a sudden, folks are balking about ticket prices and I’m like... but I already said yes.

In June, I’m going on a team building thing at the beach for us church ladies. A bunch of church admin at the Flora-Bama. What could go wrong really?

We’re stopping there for lunch—and I’m not sure that’s the wisest decision I’ll make all year. Not everyone loves everyone on this trip, if you catch my drift. But I agreed to go because there was a Troubadour Situation in it for me.

(The Turnpike Troubadours were supposed to be playing the night we’d be there—but now the trip date has changed. Twice.
I sense a pattern. And the pattern is: ain’t nothing working out like I thought.

This trobairitz will not be sneaking off—and leaving those old ladies behind—to catch a show anymore.)

But the new girl says we can still catch the Troubadours. We’ll take a mental health day and head down there—and sleep on the beach that night if we have to. I’ve never taken a mental health day. I’ve always been afraid to. It seems... dishonest. Slightly shystery. A little... I don’t know... rule-bendy.

But we’ll see.

Anyway. Now? Parasailing has replaced the Troubadours. I might have mentioned that I don’t like flying over oceans? This also most assuredly includes flying over the gulf.

In a harness.
Practically naked.
With no real protection that I can see.

But I said yes. Without even second guessing.

Then there’s something else coming up soon. Like, real soon. April 20-whateverth is barreling down the highway at top speed. And I had said no. I wasn’t going to do it. But these two buffoons* kind of talked me into it and I was kind of in this “say yes, not no” thing, right?

So I signed up to do the thing. I’ll tell you about it soon, but not today. But let me just tell you, right now? I’m doing it for real scared. Like even in practice. So I might go down in flames. Just maybe. Or at the very least run off the stage and into the hills or oblivion or wherever.

So no—this is not a story about saying yes and everything working out.

It’s a story about saying yes… and things falling apart anyway.

And then saying yes again.

And again.

And again.

I don’t know how this ends.
I don’t know what any of this adds up to yet.

But when I look back on it—all the false starts, the missed notes, the changed plans, the things that broke when I thought they might finally hold—

I don’t want to look back and wish I had stayed safe.
I don’t want to look back and say I told me so.

I don’t want to look back in anger.

I’m not even sure what I do want to see when I look back.

But—
even after this half-cocked sideshow I’m calling my life right now…

I kind of think
maybe
it’s going to be good.

Here’s the mixtape.

Changes — David Bowie (because we were just talking about it and it fits)
Change — Blind Melon
You Should Probably Leave — Chris Stapleton (because why am I still doing this?)
Wondering Why — The Red Clay Strays
Good Lord Lorrie — Turnpike Troubadours (look, it was either this song or Wrecked)
Flyover State of Mind — Michael Marcagi
Good — Better Than Ezra
Name — Goo Goo Dolls
Fix You — Coldplay
Don’t Look Back in Anger — Oasis (hit that high note, boo)
Into the Mystic — Van Morrison

*if you wanna know why I called these sweet boys “buffoons”
(a joke, I promise) give this a listen…

📲 Check out my thoughts on Autocorrect:

📝 Read ’s take on Writer’s Block and let him know your thoughts here

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16 days ago · 17 likes · 11 comments · MJ Polk

🥭 Y’all the mango is back. Check out ’s third installment here:

primalbeet

The Mango Chronicles - Episode III

Nothing made Stubs the pelican happier than a sea trout flopping in his beak. He stood ankle-deep in the inlet, regal as ever, head cocked toward the horizon. The sun was just punching through a fog that smelled of marsh and little miracles. He hurled the trout once, for flair, caught it again, and swallowed like a prophet accepting communion. Then the …

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10 days ago · 7 likes · primalbeet

Stories from the Jukebox

Don't Look Back In Anger

Calling all Poets, Fiction, or Non-Fiction writers and readers that love music — Subscribe now…

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13 days ago · 11 likes · 12 comments · MJ Polk

Also, Happy Easter, y’all. 🐰

Someone told me once that people who love the dark are stuck in it—and maybe by choice. I took that to heart for a second too long. Tried out No Rain. Stood in the sun a little more. Let it hit my face. Let it count for… something. And it was fine. Good, even. There’s something to be said for vitamin D.

But I like my gray, rainy days. I wear that like it’s a personality trait. Like if I tell you that, you’ll get it. Get me. Just like that.

I love a couch nap with a 1940s black-and-white movie in the background—maybe a Thin Man marathon—coffee in hand. Or better yet, the almond milk latte I braved the rain to go get on my way home. The window cracked. Thunder in the distance. The cozy blanket. A real pillow. A Solemn High nap…

And I do. I love it. I love the hush of it. The way the world feels like it’s been turned down a notch. No expectations for a minute.

After a while, I do start craving a little something else. A song. A sunset breaking through. A mimosa on a balcony somewhere—Cypress and Ruins, maybe—where the light hits just right and lifts the champagne haze for a breath. Where the wallpaper moves in the shadows and the air hangs with the eerie refrain from the music that’s just slightly… off.

It’s not that I want the sun exactly. No. I don’t want No Rain. I just want some movement. To duck into a used bookstore while it’s still damp outside—into the smell of old ink, brittle paper, dusty rain in the spine.

Just a shift.

Enough to remind me I’m not stuck here.

Here’s the mixtape.

No Rain — Blind Melon
Good Lord Lorrie — Turnpike Troubadours
Sleeping on the Floor — Colter Wall
Change — Blind Melon
Flyover State — Michael Marcagi

Here’s my other submission to Dueling Jukeboxes:

Stories from the Jukebox

Dueling Jukeboxes

Calling all Poets, Fiction, or Non-Fiction writers and readers that love music — Subscribe now…

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a month ago · 11 likes · 26 comments · MJ Polk

Check out Rick West’s featured novel, First Light over at The Southern Writers Guild.

Southern Writers Guild

First Light

1: Home Sweet Home…

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19 days ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · primalbeet

She ran straight to me.

They’d been chasing her up and down the street all morning. I hadn’t even set my bag down yet when she came right up to me. I reached down and gave her a little ear scratch.

“Wait—don’t let her—”

My cousin came running toward me, my mother and my aunt following behind. The pup took off.

“Oh shoot. She got away.”

The ladies of the family had been out on the lawn trying to figure out what to do about the runaway pup when I pulled in.

“I’m worried about her,” my aunt said. “She was practically to the highway earlier this morning.”

“What happened?”

“She’s been running around all morning. I’m afraid she’s gonna get run over. I called the Smootses,” my aunt said. “Polly said ‘if she gets hit, she gets hit.’”

“Lord help.”

My aunt was appalled. My mother was outraged. My cousin was planning a dognapping billed as a rescue mission.

“I say get some Beggin’ Strips and she’ll hop right up in my van,” she said.

This wasn’t the first time my straightlaced, buttoned-up, clearly more enterprising cousin had suggested larceny. Or followed through with it.

Last Thanksgiving, we went to brunch at The Stone House. When we were leaving, I noticed some of the foliage along the walkway.

“Those berries would be perfect for my Advent wreath.”

They were tiny little orbs—far more vibrant than the holly berries I’d picked from my own bushes on my own property. My cousin whipped out a pair of clippers and helped herself. Once she had a good bouquet—in record time—she handed it to me with a shrug.

“Let’s roll.”

By the time I put my suitcase away and freshened up from the long drive, the girls were sitting around the table, working out a plan. All the guys were downstairs watching football or basketball or some guy in a tie talking about football or basketball or something. All I know is they weren’t concerned with what was happening in the war room upstairs.

My mother told me they were thinking of offering to buy the pup.

“That’ll go over well…” I mumbled.

The last thing she needs is another dog. They’ve already got four.

My mother texted back and forth with Mrs. Smoots. Turns out she was more than overwhelmed. Her daughter and son-in-law had landed back at home, indefinitely, with his two kids, a newborn, and this dog. She was stretched beyond her bandwidth and willing to make a deal. More than a deal—she was ready to hand over the leash.

Not nearly the most exciting option we’d discussed, but we were satisfied. We possé’d up and headed across the street, Beggin’ Strips in our pockets.

We collected the pup—a Goldendoodle. Did I mention that? And did I mention a Goldendoodle can be black? Who knew?

Anyway, we headed over to my mother’s house—she has a bigger backyard. As we walked, the pup kept falling back, slipping into step with me.

“You might be her person, Grace Lynne.”

“You need to take her home.”

I smiled. Gave them all the excuses, the top being my inability to keep most living things alive—myself barely excluded.

But… she was a cutie.

We got to the backyard and my mother released the hounds. The skittish pup would run around, trying to play, but after a loud bark or growl, she’d end up right back next to me. She’d hop up and gently place her paws on my thighs.

She’d try again.
Another bark.
Back at my side.

Or with her little butt sitting on my feet.

Again, they commented on how much she seemed to take to me. How I needed to take her home.

I looked down at my feet.

And the pup sitting on them.

It would be nice to come home to this every night…

We moved to the porch and my mother put the other dogs away. My nephew—I love him so—came out with treats galore. The pup inched over to him and he picked her up, cuddling her like a babydoll.

Well. I’m not gonna fight my nephew for a dog.

But… she sure was a love.

I started back to my aunt’s house for the night. As I walked across the street, my mother texted me one last time:

She’d be perfect for you…

The house settled in and I was snuggled in my bed in the Peach Room. I picked up my phone.

Nashville, I think I’m getting a dog.

Who are you and what have you done with Grace?

I’m serious. Look at her.

I sent him some photos and got him caught up on the situation.

She’s cute. You don’t need a dog.

But I think I love her.

Well. Nice knowing you.

He wasn’t a fan of dogs. Not allergies, really. Just… grumpiness, I think.

She loves me. She sat on my feet. She put her little paws on me.

You won’t be able to go out on a whim.

Who would want to, with that little face waiting at home?

You’ll have to take her on walks.

I walk.

All the time. Even when it rains.

I have an umbrella.

In July.

…well.

It’s hot, Grace. You won’t be able to opt out.

I can put my hair up.

Dang, Grace. U Got It Bad.

I did. I sat the phone down and drifted off, dreaming of a little Goldendoodle all night.

I got up the next morning and shuffled across the street to Mom’s for breakfast. They were making sausage balls—and special vegetarian ones for me—and serving up strong coffee. I was barely in the door—and sure hadn’t had my coffee—when my mother said it.

“Callie’s going to take the dog!”

“Uhm?”

“We sent her pictures last night. She fell in love.”

“Did she now.” My jaw set, and I looked at my feet. My lonely, empty, Goldendoodle-less feet. I plopped down in the cozy chair. The one by the door. Five steps from here to there.

“How about that.”

The rest of the morning was a blur. The pup hopped up, took a few spins, then settled in like a lap dog. Like my lap dog. We ate breakfast. Then dinner at my aunt’s. I usually stayed the whole weekend.

I told them I had to get home.

I called Nashville on the drive.

“They gave her to Callie.”

“What? Grace, I’m sorry. I really am.”

“I know.”

Then I called my brother. I told him everything.

“I’m sure I loved her. Why are they like that?”

“I don’t know Grace. I really don’t. And they know how you are. But I need you to do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Next time you want something? I need you to say something. I need you to speak up. Don’t think about it. Just do it.”

It’s true. I’m a slow mover. I have to mull things over. I was inching toward that Golden. But not fast enough. And someone else got her before I could. Some friends have offered to rectify the situation—to drive me right on down to the shelter to pick out a pup.

But.

I don’t want just any old pup.

I wanted her.

I had it bad.

But I didn’t speak up in time.

Dang, Grace.

Here’s the Mixtape

There She Goes — The La’s
You Are the Best Thing — Ray LaMontagne
Better Together — Jack Johnson
Stay — Lisa Loeb
U Got it Bad — Usher
Slow Dancing in a Burning Room — John Mayer
Landslide — The Smashing Pumpkins
The Night We Met — Lord Huron
Puppy Love — Donny Osmond

Stories from the Jukebox

Dueling Jukeboxes

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a month ago · 10 likes · 24 comments · MJ Polk

If you’ve ever been the peacemaker, you get it. There’s a status quo. An eggshell you don’t break. Tense your footsteps and you won’t make a noise.

Everyone is quiet. Everyone is calm.

But everyone is screaming.
And somehow, you’re the only one who can hear it.

Kevn wrote a song called Peacemaker. It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t even about the kind of peace I kept. But it played on a loop in my head. A theme song. A plea.

Peacemaker, make me peace and I will be the man you seek.1

So I moved out on my own.

Quiet.

No dogs barking.
No loud televisions.
No one fighting.
No one throwing nobody up against a wall.

Quiet.

Peace. Somehow.

But not really.

I was still the peacemaker. The referee. The one scanning the room before I even walked into it. I saw the problem before it happened. The tightened jaw. The annoyed glance. The car door slamming.

And I had your drink ready. A cold compress waiting.
A softer word. A lighter tone. A redirect.
Before you knew you needed it.
Before you could tip the scale toward chaos.

I made peace, somehow.

For you.

But inside me? Troubled waters.
Always churning. Always bracing.
Always hearing what hadn’t happened yet, just beneath your current.

Peacemaker, make me peace…

It wasn’t a moment. No big stand. No slammed door. No speech. No final decision.

It was quieter than that.
It was an emergence.

I stopped stepping in. Stopped smoothing it over. Stopped catching what wasn’t mine to catch.

I let you spin. I let you spiral. I let the room stay loud.

And mine didn’t collapse.

And someone else picked up the pieces.

Somehow—
I had peace.

My house is still quiet. But it’s a choice now. Not a shield.
I can let music fill the rooms.
Loud, messy, alive.

I can walk into noise and not feel it rise up inside me.
Because the chaos isn’t here anymore.

Not in me.

And that’s the first real peace I’ve ever known.

I found peace.
Somehow.

Here’s the mixtape.

Peacemaker — Drivin’ N Cryin’
3AM — Matchbox Twenty
The Night We Met — Lord Huron
Let It Be — The Beatles
I Don’t Care What You Call Me — David Ford
Here — Mumford & Sons and Chris Stapleton
Peace Somehow — Avi Kaplan

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Peace Somehow

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a month ago · 21 likes · 23 comments · MJ Polk

I got both my broken-wing garden angels off the scratch-and-crack pallet out front of Hanzen Fritz Bike Repair & Birdbath Emporium on Highway 119. But folks back home don’t call it that. They just call it the Kissing Squirrel.

There was a statue out front that had been there since way before anything. Two concrete squirrels in what could only be described as a romantic embrace. The tag tied to one of their bushy stone tails said Squirrel Amour $115.

I never asked.

That’s where I met Mr. Fritz. That’s not his real name. I don’t think anyone knows his real name. He told me he got this name because when he was younger, he was as much trouble as two little boys. So they called him Hanzen Fritz. I never really understood what that meant. But then I never really understood half of what Mr. Fritz told me, and I’m not sure I believed the other half.

His shop was in the backroom of the concrete statuary—the Birdbath Emporium—and you had to walk your bike through rows and rows of concrete statues to get it to him. You’d walk past two rows of concrete lions, a row of frogs playing instruments, at least three Saint Francis statues, and a random gnome before you got to his door.

He’d only work on bikes with a top bar. Step-through bikes? Absolutely not. Someone asked him why—there’s always someone—and he said he only works on Amsterdam bars. Which no one has heard of. But he explained it to me one time.

“Mr. Fritz, I’ve never heard of an Amsterdam bar bike.”

“You know, bikes with the bar. Bikes ain’t no place for modesty. Just get up they and ride.”

“Oh. Yes sir.”

Who was I to question him?

Mr. Fritz was the town’s bike mechanic, sure. If you were real sweet to him, he’d fix your flat for free. He wasn’t much of a talker really, but if you got him going, you’d get a story. And you might end up benefiting from his real specialty. Fake IDs.

But not the very illegal kind. He said that was too much paperwork. If you asked him for a fake driver’s license to get into the bar, he’d wave you away like a gnat at a potluck.

And, you know me, I didn’t ask.

I did, however, always seem to have a badge to get into the Magnolia Living Expo. Normally, it costs twelve dollars to get in, so you can visit vendor booths selling goat soap, bedazzled holiday sweatshirts, and extra-special green smoothie powder for ten times the entrance fee.

And I always seemed to find myself backstage, laminate draped around my neck, at the Interstate Bluegrass Festival under the viaducts—the first Saturday after the cicadas emerge, except on Brood XIX years, of course.

I heard one time he made a handful of press badges for some writers guild, based here in the South, that had gotten themselves into an azalea situation. And they never forgot his help. But that might just be a rumor.

Not my place to ask.

One time we got to talking about my Pink Tree Workshop. I told him I liked to call it my atelier, and I told him all about the pink trees, and pink hats, and pink sofa, and pink everything. I even told him I was looking for pink saloon doors for it.

He said he’d keep an eye out for some. He hasn’t found any yet.

Anyway, I had him talking about my atelier while he was mocking up a badge for me. He said it reminded him of a bar in Amsterdam.

He told me a freak storm had him and The Lew Loren Experiment snowed in. They slept on pool tables. The next morning he rigged a bike to get them through a foot of snow to the Pannenkoekenpan down the street from the bar. As they made their way up the frozen walkway, Lew Loren—dressed head to toe in leather and eyeliner—walked up to this gentleman and shook his hand.

“Man, I’m a huge fan.”

Turns out it was Garrison Keillor whose sold-out show had been snowed out, and he’d made his way out for breakfast, too. So they all had pancakes together in Amsterdam. And that might be Mr. Fritz’s claim to fame right there.

I still don’t know why my atelier reminded him of that bar.

But I got a shiny fake badge to the judging hour at the Kudzu Quilt and Casserole Showdown out of it. And I got to see Mr. Fritz smile big as he remembered old Lew Loren and Mr. Keillor.

“I like when you come by, Grace. You’re always going places.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fritz. I like coming by here, too.”

Then I looked at him. I never really asked questions, but it just came out.

“I wonder,” I asked him, “what’s your favorite statue out here?”

I looked over at the amorous squirrels.

“Birdbaths,” he said.

“Why birdbaths, Mr. Fritz?”

“Because they sell.”

Stories from the Jukebox

A Bar in Amsterdam

Calling all Poets, Fiction, or Non-Fiction writers and readers that love music — Subscribe now…

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a month ago · 12 likes · 7 comments · MJ Polk

Southern Writers Guild

The Porch

The Porch…

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3 months ago · 9 likes · 1 comment · primalbeet

Here comes the sun, peeking through the blinds, every single morning. Whether I’m ready or not—and let’s face it, I never am. I do like my naps. So I have the slats angled just so—making sure the sun hits me square in the eyeballs.

“Uuuuggggghhhhhh,” I groan. Every time. Like one of these days someone in an authority position is going to register my complaint and repair this injustice.

Like: huh, you know, mornings have always been traumatic for Gray. Maybe the sun could be just a touch sweeter to her…

But no. It never happens.

And all the while there’s a song starting up in the back of my brain. Sounds like a radio in the next room maybe. No rhyme or reason, far as I’ve figured, to what it will be. Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit? Zach Bryan and Kings of Leon singing about The Bowery? Doesn’t mean I’m in a bad mood, nor that I hung out at some bar last night.

I mumble five more minutes into my pillow, but I already know. Five minutes ain’t worth nothing, so I streeeeetch and then begrudgingly sling my feet over the side of the bed, like someone has just asked me to lug a barrel of water on my back up a hill in the July sun. Oh right. Here comes the sun.

And then. Here comes the song.

It’s still playing in the background, but it gets a little louder. And sometimes there’s a story brewing up front—most days it’s both. I scowl as I do my squats and then pad down the hallway, feet on the cold tile floor, headed toward the bathroom. When I come back by, I catch a whiff of the coffee brewing. Extra strong. It makes me smile.

I hum a few bars as I brush my teeth. Might even gargle to the melody. Thank the Lord I laid my clothes out last night because I can barely find the things that are attached to my body at this juncture.

I holler from across the room, “Hey Siri, take a note:
She has a deathgrip on the handlebar but he bribes her with a Jolly Rancher.”
One shoe in hand, the other AWOL—because I laid out my outfit but forgot the footsies. I can’t wait to see what he actually writes down.

I flip my head over to brush my hair and wonder why this particular song today? I never figure that out. Sometimes I heard it yesterday, sometimes I haven’t heard it since childhood. Who knows.

The other day? One Fine Day by the Chiffons. Where did that even come from? Today, it was a Mazzy Star song. Fade Into You. I didn’t question it.

I finish my hair. Then a quick look at my reflection in the microwave door to swipe on some lipstick. By the time I’m at the coffee maker, it’s no longer a hum, no longer a thought, but a full-on performance. Complete with twirl. Maybe a shoulder shimmy. A little air guitar. Only as appropriate, of course.

Every morning the sun shows up, the coffee kicks in, and the song follows

.

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Stories from the Jukebox

Here Comes the Sun

Calling all Poets, Fiction, or Non-Fiction writers and readers that love music — Subscribe now…

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2 months ago · 9 likes · 11 comments · MJ Polk

primalbeet

Saudade - A Novella

Chapter 1…

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2 months ago · 12 likes · 3 comments · primalbeet

Southern Writers Guild

The Ugly Duckling- Ch 11

This novelette length story will be released over the next 2 weeks — Subscribe Now to receive it Free! Don’t want to wait? You can purchase the ebook here…

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2 months ago · 2 likes · MJ Polk

“Man, I love a beer that can replace dinner.”

“You ready for another one?” he asked me. “You worked for it today.”

I nodded.

Three and a half miles.

Doesn’t sound like much, but two hours ago I was straddling a borrowed bike, toes barely touching the ground, for the first time in decades. I was back to square one, negotiating with my feet to even come up to the pedals. I hadn’t considered they might betray me today. They weren’t budging.

Until they finally did.

So we celebrated with some Good People Coffee Oatmeal Stout out by the pool. Picked it up at Irene’s on the corner. Locked our bikes outside, like real bikers. Wore our helmets in. He let me pick. I saw his face squirrel up, like I’d chosen cough syrup.

“You want a porter.”

“No big deal. I’ll get both.”

He strapped the beer to his bike and we headed back to our street.

The sun had dipped behind the trees. The solar lamp tipped over earlier and hadn’t gotten enough sunlight to charge. We got maybe 15 minutes of pitiful glow—then one last flicker before giving up.

We stayed.

We caught up—disembodied words floating in the darkness. The neighbor started their grill.

“They cook out every Saturday,” he whispered. “Rain or shine. Like clockwork.”

Then he reminded me about Spain. His lifelong dream: a bullfight. His favorite matador, who is a freaking rock star. Looks like a maniac in his promo shots. He only has one eye.

He finally got to go. He showed me a photo: him in his bow tie and seersucker suit, holding a specialty pre-fight wine and cheese. Dapper. He spoke with reverence.

Then he told me about his goddaughter Bellamy. She went to Dublin last year for New Year’s. Found a tiny pub. Nothing special. But everything. Rang in the new year with strangers.
“Now, she’s living her best twenty-eight-year-old life.
We’re going to Portugal this time.”

Portugal.

I’d heard Portugal’s name more than once lately. Like it had a plan.

I looked his way and spoke into the dark.
“You speak Portuguese?”

“Not a lick. Don’t matter, babydoll.”

“New Year’s, eh?”
My stomach did a half-flip. Square one again. Only this time, negotiating my feet over an ocean.

“Yeah. Nine days. Maybe more. Maybe less. We could leave on the 24^th.”

“We could?”

“Yes. No. Wait. You have to go to Midnight Mass.
Let’s leave on the 25^th—Airbnb. You ever stayed in one?”

“No. But listen. Don’t — are you serious? Don’t just be talking ideas here.”

I’ve known him forever. I know he doesn’t float ideas and call them blueprints. And he knows I start building. But still… I had to ask.

“Serious as a heart attack. Come on.”

The lamp was dead. The pool black glass behind him.
A small flicker by the neighbor’s fence.

I nodded.
He couldn’t see me.

He was booking rooms and flights.

Here’s the mixtape.

Back to Square One — Ian Thomas
Holiday in Spain — Counting Crows
Wherever I Go — Noah Rinker
Beautiful World — John Prine
Still Out There Running — Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
Till Things Get Right — The Red Clay Strays
Keep Me Honest — Michael Marcagi
You Should Probably Leave — Chris Stapleton

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Stories from the Jukebox

Back to Square One

Calling all Poets, Fiction, or Non-Fiction writers and readers that love music — Subscribe now…

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2 months ago · 4 likes · MJ Polk

She’d been driving down this dirt road for about an hour. The GPS had lost connection somewhere near the emu farm. She rifled through the papers in the passenger seat — receipts, an old scarf, a grocery bag with something sticky and unidentifiable in it — and found a folded map. East Nashville. Of course. That didn’t help.

Two lakes seemed to materialize as she got nearer. Mist barely touching the surface. Then all of a sudden the GPS barked an order. Turn left past the second lake. She started toward the wrong direction. She always confused left and right and was certain it was some form of dyslexia. At the last minute she jerked the car in the right direction—a cloud of red dust forming behind her.

She slowed as she got to the cabin. It looked like all the rest of them out here, but she knew this was the one. She grabbed her bags and walked up to the porch. The key didn’t work. She knew it wouldn’t. She fished the matchbook out of her back pocket and opened it up. The password. She took a deep breath and said, “Bobcaygeon,” unsure if she’d pronounced it correctly. The door opened.

The fireplace was already lit and crackling. She set her bags down and looked around the room. Inspected the contents in the refrigerator. Dropped her keys on the counter. She peeked into the bedroom and then took in the glorious view overlooking the bluff out back. She kicked off her shoes and turned back toward the front door. There it was. How did she miss it before?

The door. Barnwood. Pink. Faded. The lock was broken, just like he said. She looked closer. Not so much broken as not meant to work.

She breathed in the scent of old books and clove cigarettes. She didn’t hesitate.
She stepped inside.

She’d met him last night. Or was it the night before. It had all been a blur since she’d left.

“Where is the diner question mark,” she muttered into her phone.

“I’m sorry, were you talking to me?” he asked her.

She caught a hint of clove as he came nearer. “Uh, what?”

“I’m a little hard of hearing.” He tapped his ear. “I thought you said something?”

He looked familiar. Maybe she’d seen him at the library? Or… in a dream? The skylight one?

“Oh. No. I… uh.. I was looking for the diner,” she held up her phone. “Asking my friend… speech to text. I’m sorry.”

“Your name,” he nodded. “It’s on the list.”

She blinked. “The list?”
“My name?”

“Loves That Almost Were.”
He said it like everyone knew there was one. “Yours and—”

“ALMOST?” She spat the word at him.

There was no almost. There had been a cost. Her sleep. Her dignity. A full year she couldn’t account for without tightening her jaw.

He stepped back. “Ah. I thought so.”

“You thought what?”

“It happens.”

“What happens? What are you—”

He explained the protocol calmly. Told her an address. He pressed a matchbook into her palm. “It rhymes with constellation,” he said.

She hadn’t stopped driving until she got here.

The room was piled with papers.
Love letters never mailed.
Valentines with tear stains.
Notebooks with initials + initials = tru luv pressed into the cover.
A bowl glowed with unsent texts.
The botanical style card with the anatomical heart. She flipped it over and saw handwriting she didn’t want to recognize.

She put the card back—too quickly. She glanced toward the corner. Right where he said. The ledger.

She flipped it open. There was the pencil. Freshly sharpened. He didn’t mention that part. She pressed on the eraser with her thumb. Good quality.

She ran her finger down the page until she found her name. She touched it. It was bruised underneath, but pushed back. She glanced at his name—her throat tightened. She lifted the pencil. She rubbed the first letter with the pink eraser. Gently. Then jerked her hand back. The room exhaled. Something in her chest shook loose.

She looked around the room. It shifted.

Across the top of the page, the title caught her eye. She leaned in and lifted it toward the firelight. A different font. She looked closer. The fire flickered. She saw the indentation of what had been there before. Erased. Faintly.

RETAINED

What was she about to erase?

She thought about the man with the matchbook. The way he said it happens. How he didn’t apologize. The protocol.

He’d known she would come.

She looked at the page again.
Not Almost.
Retained.
Flipped the pencil over to the finely sharpened point. It hovered over her name. She looked at the eraser. She balanced the pencil on her index finger. A nervous habit.

The fire popped, then steadied. She looked over toward the hearth, then out the window. A lake was forming. Mist just above. She turned back to the ledger.

Stories from the Jukebox

Bobcaygeon

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2 months ago · 11 likes · 3 comments · MJ Polk

I’ve published 60,000+ words on Substack since June. And there are a few more thousand in the hopper. I actually went down the rabbit hole of counting all those words the other day after having a conversation with a friend about whether or not I can finish writing this book I started… in June.

Last spring, I was enamoured with Shadow and Jackie and the “pip watch”—eagles hatching eaglets. They freaked me out—the way they moved about, they looked like they were really little people in eagle costumes. I got sucked in and tuned in daily to see what they were up to. I was fascinated by how these birds just knew what to do. They knew how to swap places and give each other space. They knew how to keep the eggs warm. How to keep up their strength. Somewhere inside, they knew how to do it.

And one day I had the crazy thought, what would it be like to spend the night in an Eagle’s nest?

And then my imagination went wild. I started building a story around that one little idea that ends up just being a blip in this bigger story I’m writing. Was writing. Am writing. Ish.

Before that, I hadn’t written anything more than a social media post here and there. And I’d stopped doing that years ago because… social media. And before that? It was mostly just gratitude lists and bad poetry.

Still. I can tell a story. It’s what I do. Daily. Whether you’ve asked for one or not.

I started posting stories and essays—and, ’s favorite, memoirs—on Substack. Don’t worry that I backed into the whole Substack thing. I still don’t know how to explain to folks how it’s different than a blog. But it is. I don’t know. Don’t ask.

And I mean. Some of them were… woof. Still, time after time, I came back to the page. Not because I knew what I was doing—but because something inside me did.

Time after time, I wonder if Substack is my distraction. If these 450-word pieces are safe. If I’m hiding in the short form because I’m afraid of the long one. The one I’m not sure I can finish. The one I’m not sure I have the discipline to finish. The one I’m afraid I’ll get bored with before I finish.

Time after time, I tell myself that these shorter pieces on Substack are actually a lot more fun. And maybe that’s what I was really cut out to do. A book—one big long story about the same thing? Is that really my style?

And time after time, my mind wanders to the characters in the book and I imagine what they’re up to. Where would they be if I’d kept on creating? And did I just waste the seven or eight months that I could have been working on the book by instead posting weekly on the ole Substack?

Because, I’ve practically written a book’s worth of words here. Except for the connective tissue between 133-ish pieces.

Then again, maybe I wasn’t wasting time but keeping the idea warm. Time after time, I figured out how to trim and when to do it. When I should expand the thought and when to let it breathe. Learned how to polish my words so they shine in the pink glittery way I like them to shine.

So maybe it wasn’t a waste of time?

I recently made my way back to the book. I have a lot more there than I realized. I have an entire story arc. And scenes written out. Dialogue like crazy, because I’m kind of good at that. So I need to get some connective tissue going. And figure out how to land this bird.

Somewhere inside me, something knows how to do this. Time after time, it’s brought me back to the page. And now I’m going to trust it.

Their voices bellowed so loudly, the knick-knacks nearly fell off the boutique shelves. The ruckus gave Grace enough time to pick her composure up off the floor and flash them a smile… Read GRACELETS over at Southern Writers Guild..

Southern Writers Guild

Gracelets

“FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY THREE DOLLARS…

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4 months ago · 9 likes · Gray

Stories from the Jukebox

Time After Time

Calling all Poets, Fiction, or Non-Fiction writers and readers that love music — Subscribe now…

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2 months ago · 14 likes · 4 comments · MJ Polk

I live by rules I didn’t invent, habits I chose to keep, and songs ghosts continue to sing.

I order the Caesar salad and French fries when I need a hug. My friend Steve introduced me to this fine meal. It’s mine now.

My stepdad taught me how to remember 8x7, how to spell together, and how to feel my emotions.

I always use valet parking if they offer it and always tip housekeeping. Big. Delia taught me this lesson and it’s inked into my soul.

Nashville taught me how to take off and land without the white knuckles, and I still use the trick today. Not that I think about him when I do it.
I just breathe.
It works.

I learned my worth from someone who told me I had none.
So maybe I’ve never looked you in the eye.

I make sure they’re all happy. Every last one of them, before I take my seat. That’s me—moving chairs around and propping up your feet.

I can read the room like nobody’s business. I know the exits, the fakers, the people you can trust. I’ve had the training—it’s on my resumé.

There was a dangerous boy who taught me how to wear my Docs with confidence and attitude—like I could stomp anything, even if I was scared I couldn’t.

Music is a load-bearing beam in my house. Always playing, sunup to sundown. This is the greatest gift I ever received from my father.

I wear pink to lunch but I still dress after-five for after five. Someone I respect greatly taught me this. Nobody does it anymore. I do.

I wear my Magnolia Pearl with thrift store jackets and thigh-high wool socks.

I’m a great cook and an even better snickerdoodle baker. I didn’t learn from my mother, my aunt, or my grandmother—but through trial and error, when I realized I had to feed myself to survive.

If I meet you, you get a firm handshake—passed to me by a man I never met, through the daughter who became my godmother.
Firm grasp.
No wet fish.
Doesn’t matter if you’re a girl, if you take a hand, you mean it.

I can be quiet sitting next to you and in living out my faith. My sweet friend—who probably prayed me out of more bad situations than I’ll ever tell you about—taught me how.

I wear ripped jeans and pray a rosary.
Drink a little Jack. Have the potential to swear like a sailor.
Don’t do anything much like a Saint.

I am a little bit of everyone who stayed.
And some who didn’t.

A slice of those who forced their mark on me.
A touch of those who held me close.

This right here is my self portrait. I’m not a snapshot of my words, my veins, my thoughts. I’m an inheritance of impressions, even from ghosts.

I’m a little bit me.
And I’m a little bit you.

Southern Writers Guild

The Pensacola Incident

The idea arrived via Hank’s phone at 2 AM—a grainy video forwarded by a trucker named Dale who swore on his mama’s cornbread he’d seen lights diving into the Gulf off Pensacola Beach. “Straight down,” Dale’s text read. “No arc. In and out like they got a base down there…

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3 months ago · 10 likes · 1 comment · Gray and primalbeet

Stories from the Jukebox

A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You

Calling all Poets, Fiction, or Non-Fiction writers and readers that love music — Subscribe now…

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3 months ago · 15 likes · 9 comments · MJ Polk

FIELD REPORT // 01-31-26

LOC: [redacted], [redacted] (Dirty South)

CONDITIONS: 22°F / Visibility: High / Heat: Null

The winter sun moves like mercury in an old thermometer—the kind we’re not supposed to have anymore—silver, blinding.
It doesn’t negotiate, but reports: the temperature, the heat.

Twenty-two degrees in the Dirty South.
Ain’t no heat.

There’s sun, though.

There’s light, sure. Plenty of it. Enough to show the road, the shoulder, the long empty stretches ahead. Not enough to change the temperature.

Winter sun doesn’t always warm what it touches.
It illuminates.
It exposes.

It’s not grace.
It’s not mercy.

It’s just what happens when you send the sun anyway.

It sits low in the sky in the early evening, sharp and unblinking. It turns the windshield into a mirror and the road into a glare. I have to squint. Slow down. Sometimes I have to pull the visor down and still look sideways—just to keep moving.

The highway is almost empty at that hour. Not dramatic-empty. Just… cleared out. Fewer cars. Long stretches of asphalt lit up like a landing strip for a plane that hasn’t called in yet.

The silver light doesn’t fill the space—it outlines it. It shows exactly how much room there is. Exactly how little.

I don’t pull over. Not turning around. In my lane—room to leave if I need to.
Also, room to stay.

I keep the defrost on high, one hand on the wheel, the other reaching for the breath of the heater vent.

Just enough light to keep moving. Just enough visibility to stay on the road.

It does the job.

Sometimes that’s enough.

[END REPORT]

Here’s the mixtape.

Send the Sun—Nikki Lane
Cold Desert—Kings of Leon
Something in the Orange—Zach Bryan
Moon Song—Phoebe Bridgers
Colder Weather— Wyatt Durrette and Levi Lowrey
Wondering Why—The Red Clay Strays
Blue Jeans and a Rosary—Kid Rock
Shake the Frost—Tyler Childers

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If you’ve never read Stories from the Jukebox, you should. Maybe start here.

Stories from the Jukebox

Send The Sun

Calling all Poets, Fiction, or Non-Fiction writers and readers that love music — Subscribe now…

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3 months ago · 11 likes · 11 comments · MJ Polk

“Vienna.”

Grace held her breath for half a second after she sent the text.
Then she sent the link.

She placed her phone face down, determined not to check it every two minutes.
Her phone buzzed three minutes later.
Craig.

“Did you mean to send this to me?”

“Yep.”

“Vienna?”

“Vienna.”

“Ok?”

“I’m stepping out of myself this year. And I want you to come along.
You’re the most adventurous person I know.
You know how to get an Uber in…German.”

Her heart was pounding. She’d planned for that:
She breathed in. Held it. Exhaled.
Slowly.

“Really. But… Vienna?
We’ve never traveled together.”

“Details.”

Grace had no idea how they would actually do this. Or if they even could.
But she knew the asking mattered.

“We haven’t hung out in… years.”

“No bigs.”

She shrugged, alone in her kitchen. Years just meant there were things left to say.

“I don’t like The Lumineers.”

“Ok. Slightly more important to the story. But—
there are other bands playing.
Plus.
It’s Vienna.”

“You hate even leaving the house in July.”

“Sunscreen.”

It was only January, but it was already in her Amazon cart.

“Who are you, and what have you done with Gray?”

“Grace. : )”

“Grace.
.…
Really?”

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Pink sweater. Pink cheeks.
Maybe she’d take the Magnolia Pearl hoodie dress if this actually happened.

“Yes. Really. I’m even wearing pink again.”

A pause.

“Welcome back…”

“Thanks 💖”

“Is the pink hat coming out of retirement for this?”

She smiled.
“See? You know me.”

Another pause.
This was happening.
Grace could feel it.
“So.
We’re going?”

“Let’s meet for coffee.
STAT.”

Stories from the Jukebox

Vienna

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s prompt, Classy Girls, by the Lumineers! Be sure to check out our Headliner by Gray, Classe' Girls, if you missed it. What a great read! And I’m so excited to see what y’all come up with this week!Subscribers to Stories from the Jukebox have a chance to be featured in the following week’s newsletter…

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3 months ago · 11 likes · 8 comments · MJ Polk

Some people might’ve guessed I’d pick a different song/band, but it was always going to be The Lumineers for me. Always. Wesley Schultz doesn’t overthink poetry—he tells a story and leaves enough room for us to find our own way inside it. And I love that.

Have fun, y’all.

She checked her watch.
9:55.

Brunch started at ten.
Her sister lived thirty minutes away.

Late as always.

Grace Classé suspected her sister hosted New Year’s Day brunch this early just to make sure she didn’t stay out too late on New Year’s Eve.

Of course, all Grace did last night was go to the chapel—to pray before and after midnight, ushering out the old and bringing in the new with prayer.

Her sister had asked her to make the hashbrown casserole. Grace hated being told what to bring to a potluck. Hated it. Still—she wondered if this was the year to ease up on the brattiness. Katherine Dee had told them just last week that she was not, in fact, in remission.

And then, just as plainly, that she wanted things to go on. She wanted the brunch. She wanted the noise.

When she walked in the door, her sister looked at the bowl.
“That doesn’t look like a casserole.”

“Well, Katydid,” she smiled. “I felt like salad.”

“Life360 went dark, Grace. Right around the time the ball dropped.” She looked at Grace and raised an eyebrow over the rim of her Best Mom mug.

Grace offered a saintly smile. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, sis. Maybe He just wanted us to have a private conversation.”

“The Lord or a VPN?” Elizabeth Marie chimed in.

“Both/and, Lizzy Em,” Grace winked.

“I’ll be over in a sec—we need a Classé Girls huddle.” She was already turning back to a discussion about her youngest daughter’s wedding.

“I did check your cameras, though,” Katherine Dee continued, “and noticed you weren’t home yet.”

Just then, Grace’s nephew swooped in and handed her a cup of black coffee. Grace took a swig and turned on her heel, setting the salad in the center of the island buffet.

“Grace Anne!” Katherine Dee followed her to the kitchen.

“You need help with anything?” Grace asked her brother-in-law.

“Nope,” he said. “Got it handled. Mostly. But do you remember how long the French toast casserole is supposed to bake?”

“I’ll ask Mr. Google.”

Grace pulled out her phone. Her voice dropped to a velvet hush.

“…how long do I bake French toast casserole?”

The kitchen went silent.

Everyone.

Katherine Dee.
Elizabeth Marie.
The kids.
The kids’ kids.
The dog.

Her nephew paused mid-pour. “Whoa. Did someone just give Aunt Grace a Marlboro and a shot of bourbon?”

Her brother-in-law froze, one hand halfway in an oven mitt.

“What?” Grace looked up.

Katydid tilted her head. “Must you Kathleen Turner your iPhone?”

Grace blinked.

“Yes,” she said.

Grace wandered over to what was still the kids’ table—grown adults now, some with kids of their own—and slid into a seat next to her nephew. They looked at her with newfound awe.

“I think Aunt Grace has a secret life,” one of them said. “Motorcycles. Maybe midnight trysts.”

“So,” her nephew leaned in, grinning, “the chapel, huh? That’s the official story?”

Grace smiled, glancing back toward her sisters, who were whispering by the island.

“That’s my story,” she said. “Though I can never really be sure if it’s real life, something I read, or just the lyrics to a Lumineers song.”

She took a sip of coffee.

“Now tell me—what does the army have you doing these days? Have you ever disabled a GPS tracker?”

Here’s the mixtape,

Classy Girls — The Lumineers
This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) cover—The Lumineers
In the Light — The Lumineers
Cold Desert — Kings of Leon
Paul Revere — Noah Kahan
American Romance — Michael Marcagi
Slow Burn — Kacey Musgraves
The Muse — The Wood Brothers
Classy Girls (B version) —The Lumineers

listen here

Check out the Jukebox and enter your own submission here:

Stories from the Jukebox

Classy Girls

The Jukebox is thumping! A BIG SHOUT-OUT goes to Gray, Bill Ferguson 🇨🇦 , Debra Martin, primalbeet and Hank Cotton, for their submissions to last week’s prompt, Right Place Wrong Time, by Dr John. Readers, you can find their stories in the comments of that post! And Marty’s Headliner…

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3 months ago · 5 likes · MJ Polk

“Whatever you are doing, that which makes you feel the most alive... that is where God is.”
- Saint Ignatius of Loyola

I know a lot about being in the right place at the wrong time. Really the phrase should be in my bio. The wasted chances, near misses, and cosmic jokes are my life story.

I have a great life, good job. I love my home. The steadiness and quiet—the routine. The predictability.

The same song in, same tune out every year.
I knew how the year would start. I knew how it would end.

Maybe a bump here and there. Sickness. Grief. Shock. Then back to baseline and I kept on trucking.

But a switch flipped this past year. I’d like to say it was something external.
An event.
A word.
A motivation.

It was not.

Something inside was sleeping and I woke it up. By accident, I think. Or I thought. Now I’m not so sure. I reached the edge a few times and I didn’t fall. Nothing shattered.

So I tried a new thing for a while. Then I dropped it.
And I tried something else. It fizzled.
So another thing.

Watercolor. And I stayed in my studio painting until 3 AM. I hadn’t done that in years. And I liked it.

Then I dreamed a dream of an eagle’s nest and I wrote a story about it.
I reread and re-wrote old poetry.
I did something like maybe memoir writing. I thought it was awful, but the feedback said otherwise.

Things moved. Things stirred. Things shifted.

And I thought that was it. I was becoming and rebecoming and each time it felt like home. I started pruning and shedding and paring. And I became.

I had a conversation about this with a friend. I said I thought that everything I became last year was it—the goal. But I’m now realizing that wasn’t—it was preparation for what is to come.

They said they’d just read those exact words somewhere. Something about Chinese astrology and the Year of the Wood Snake being about pruning, shedding, and preparation. And y’all. I don’t subscribe to Chinese astrology. I wasn’t looking to it for explanations or predictions, but the patterns were there.

Chinese wisdom talks about years of pruning followed by years of movement. Catholicism calls it Purification. Illumination. Mission. St. Ignatius built a whole practice around noticing interior movements before acting. And then there is St. Augustine’s theology that creation can awaken wonder, but revelation completes understanding.

For me, last year wasn’t about arrival, but about preparation. And awakening.
Only looking back, do I see that.

Discernment comes before Mission.
Last year I was discerning.
It was not the goal. It was not the finish line. It was just getting ready.

Last Spring, I cleared out my studio of tools and projects and art supplies I wasn’t using. I kept my watercolors and brought in a pink velvet sofa and lined the ledge with a forest of pink trees. Then brought in my old work table with paint stains and dents and pits. I write out prayers and tape them with washi tape to the table top. I call it my Table of Becoming. I write here every day.

I thought this table was the goal. Even though its very name is Becoming.

Listen. I don’t make new year’s resolutions. I don’t name and claim that this year will be mine. The last time I did that it was a lock-down with one-way grocery store aisles that I never mastered.

Like I said. I’ve always been at the wrong time. I was born ten days late. Got detention on the regular for being late to class. Slid in late to the SAT and had to beg to be let in. Late for work, late for church, late for faith, late for love. Late, yes, even for dinner—a sin against humanity—every single time.

Right places, wrong times.

But I’m rolling into this next year thinking maybe I didn’t miss my moment. I think I was becoming the girl who could recognize it.

No predictions. But 2026 in Chinese Astrology, it’s interesting to note, is the Year of the Fire Horse—associated with movement and forward motion, after discernment.

If this year brings some momentum. Some visibility. Some movement.
I won’t be surprised. I’ll steward it wisely.

I’m not saying this will be my year.

I’m saying I’m finally here—at the right time—and I’m paying attention.

Here’s the mixtape.

This Year Will Be Our Year — The Zombies (1968)
Right Place, Wrong Time — Dr. John
Same Old Song — The Lumineers
Let Things Go — Caamp
This Year Will Be Our Year — The Zombies (2021)
Same Old Tune — Stevie Tombstone
Everything is Gonna Be Alright — Drivin N Cryin
This Must Be The Place — The Lumineers
This Year Will Be Our Year — Foo Fighters

listen here

Here’s one you prolly haven’t read. Check it out over at Southern Writers Guild.

Southern Writers Guild

Raising Us Behind the Circle K

The kids sprawled behind the Circle K, their survival kit scattered in the tall grass—Marlboros, Bic lighters, and Whip-Its strewn about. The boombox was loaded with mixtapes they never rewound, and dreams they never spoke out loud. Bottles of MD 20/20 and Strawberry Hill were warm and sticky in the late summer heat…

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3 months ago · 5 likes · Gray

If you haven’t checked out the Jukebox before, you really should. Maybe start here:

Stories from the Jukebox

Right Place Wrong Time

What a way to kick off the New Year! Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s song prompt, Mirror, by Rick West. This was the first time that our song has been written by a Jukebox Band Member and it turned out amazing! There were so many great submissions …

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3 months ago · 8 likes · 7 comments · MJ Polk

My camera doesn’t lie.
It just takes the three-dimensional experience and flattens it into 2D. Maybe that’s all I can handle.

The mirror has never told me the truth.
Or maybe it tells a truth, but not one I know how to read. They say to look in the mirror as if the mirror is neutral, as if it hasn’t been reversing the story the whole time. My good side is my good side in the mirror, but not the camera. So do I even have a good side.

I don’t trust it when the mirror says I look fine. I’ve only ever trusted it when it said that I didn’t. When it exaggerates or it minimizes or it catches me mid-blink, calls me a frog—I take that to be gospel. If I halfway look okay, I need seventeen different angle checks to see where it’s lying.

Everything in the mirror is backwards.

Try braiding your hair or curling it or pointing to anything with confidence.

Backwards.

I know where I want to go, but the reflection pulls me the other way. Like this morning, I’m standing there with a curling iron trying to get a little bounce. And I know I should be moving it toward the ends, but my hand keeps moving toward the roots—because that’s what the mirror seems to ask for. And the harder I try to correct it, the more wrong it feels.

But for a moment, my hair does look perfect in the mirror. Big. Southern. Door frame threatening. The kind of hair that says, yes, I belong here.

But 15 minutes later, gravity and genetics win and my hair returns to its natural state, which is fine. It’s always fine. Even if I don’t belong anymore.

It’s not that the mirror is lying.
It’s just maybe incomplete.
It tells the truth it can tell, and the rest has to be trusted somewhere else.

The mirror reverses things.
The camera flattens things.
Neither one of them knows the full story.

And I’m still trying to learn which reflections deserve my trust, and how to move in the dimension they leave out.

Here’s the mixtape.

Mirrorball — Taylor Swift
Paper Bag — Fiona Apple
Unpretty — Jelly Roll
Something More Than Free — Jason Isbell
Both Sides, Now — Joni Mitchell
Kodachrome — Paul Simon
Mirror — primalbeet

listen here

I don’t push all my stories out by email. I’d like us to remain friends, so I don’t want to crowd your inbox. You might have missed my New Year’s Eve tale. Here it is. I hope you like it.

If you haven’t checked out Stories from the Jukebox, you really should. You can start here.

Stories from the Jukebox

Mirror

Our holiday prompt, Colder Weather, by Zac Brown Band was the bomb💥 or maybe it brought the bomb🌀… sorry if you’re getting hammered by the wicked-awful winter storm descending on the US🥶 Thanks to everyone who participated — what a great batch of stories! Here’s our Headliner…

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4 months ago · 12 likes · 4 comments · MJ Polk

“Grace. Eyeballs.”

Birch tapped the table softly. He always knew how to call Grace back to earth when she drifted out of orbit.

Joy clucked as she read the Cracker Barrel menu. She tried to be gentle with her—with everyone. She wished Birch would be, too, sometimes. He waved her off and tapped again.

The sound of Birch’s ring on the table brought Grace back. She turned, her face square with his. Blank, blinking, until she came back into focus.

“Hmm? What’s that Birch?” she hummed, putting both feet flat on the floor.

“New Year’s. Y’all’re coming to the cabin?”

“Yeah, sure Birch.” Grace was more fully online now.

“Nashville’s coming too?” It was a fair question, given the decades long on again off again.

“Yeah. He’ll be there. Of course,” she nodded. “He’s flying in that morning.”

Yeah, he’ll be there. Grace told herself she should stop worrying—it looked like they would limp along just fine. Past New Year’s. Possibly even into Spring. Maybe we’ll still be trucking along by the time colder weather comes around again.

“I think I’ll get the pecan pancakes.”

“It’s so warm by this fire,” Grace whispered into the pit, staring past the fire. It’ll be warmer when Nashville’s here. It always is. He always is.

She felt Joy offer her a skewered marshmallow. She shook her head, eyeing the flame that pulled her in and through. Out over the fire. Out above the trees. Out past the stars, she floats. Rolling the past around in her hands. She can’t feel it, though she could trace the scar tissue in her sleep.

No pain.
Everything’s muted.
Always drifting in and out.

Just better to float away than to think someone might actually see it and… not run?
Seen would mean taking a step she’d never had to take before—and staying in it.

Birch caught her slip back into being—touched his shoulder to hers. “Nice trip, kiddo?”

There’s a delay. Always is. She nods before she really hears him, life out of sync.

“One day do you think he’ll get tired of me leaving?”

“He hasn’t yet,” he said, stabbing a marshmallow with a bamboo skewer.

“But you hate it, Birch. Maybe he does too.”

“Grace, how ‘bout you just try and stay here when you can. And sometimes when you think you can’t.”

“Ok.”

“Nashville’ll be here in a minute,” Joy called up from her texts. “Champers is chilling. I’ll turn on the ball drop.”

Grace wrapped her hands around her warm mug. She counted breaths until she heard the front door open.

“Happy New Year, everybody!”

Here’s the mixtape.

Colder Weather — Zac Brown
I Don’t Care What You Call Me — David Ford
Ends of the Earth — Ty Myers
The Other Side — Michael Marcagi
Orange Juice — Noah Kahan
Come Pick Me Up — Ryan Adams
The Stable Song — Gregory Alan Isakov

listen here

Here’s how they started. This go round.

If you haven’t read Stories from the Jukebox, you really should. Maybe start here:

Stories from the Jukebox

Colder Weather

Happy Christmas & Holidays to you all! Gosh last week’s prompt, I Still Miss Someone, by Johnny Cash was amazing! We had so many great submissions, Jeannine Lawall really picked a good one! Thanks to everyone who submitted, read, liked, shared, and commented on all the posts…

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4 months ago · 6 likes · 3 comments

Gray put on her pink Docs, in case she needed to kick someone’s teeth in later. Metaphorically speaking. Mostly. It’s not that she was pissed off at anyone in particular. She’d just been feeling agitated. At everything. Something just wasn’t going right. Who was she kidding? Nothing was going right.

Grief was manageable for her when it stayed in its little box. Birthdays or anniversaries or when she took a deep breath and swallowed it all before she walked into a talk about mental health or suicide prevention.

But when it sliced from sideways? Throat punch. It could take her down before she knew what hit her.

Blammo.

So she spent Thursday night on the cold tile floor just hoping to feel something different than what she was feeling.

“Listen, Chap,” she said, when he called to check on her. “I am anti–Trigger Warning. 100%. Just jump in the mosh-pit and see what floats. What doesn’t hold you up might make you stronger. But, damn, did they have to be toting a switchblade?”

She looked at today’s square on her calendar dead in the eye.
“Do NOT make me come over there.”

Then she thought of every other Southern threat she’d ever heard.

Something about stomping someone into a mudhole or knocking them into next week.

You test me today Friday? I will smack the taste right outa yer mouth, she mumbled.

Now that she and the day had an understanding, she pulled her laces tight.

She stood up and stomped her heel.
“Paging Doctor Marten…”

Her boot whispered back, bring it.

“Brrrang. It.” She grinned.
Bring the pain, it cheered.

Bring the hard day.
Bring whatever yesterday did to take me down.
Bring it on, Friday.
Bring the pain. I’m ready for a rematch.

Here’s the mixtape.

listen here

Bring the Pain — Method Man
Break Stuff — Limp Bizkit
Rock Salt & Nails — Tyler Childers
Violet — Hole
You Oughta Know — Alanis Morissette
Not an Addict — K’s Choice

Stories from the Jukebox

Bring the Pain

A Wonderful week of inspiration has been brought to us by last week’s prompt, What a Wonderful World, by Louis Armstrong! I believe that the impact of the words shared during that prompt, will have a far reaching effect. They have already touched countless lives, and will continue to do so. A special thank you 🙏 goes to everyone involved…

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5 months ago · 10 likes · 6 comments · MJ Polk

Here’s one you might have missed. I hope you like it.

You found your way to Substack. Maybe a friend who knows that you write told you to check it out. Or your highly cardiganned editor friend from 2004. Or the blogger priest you used to work with. Or whatever. You know. Details may vary. But you found your way.

You post your first note. Something clever like:
First note. I have no idea what I’m doing.
Or, you know. Something like that.

Then you copy the piece you’ve labored over on Google Docs and you paste it. You struggle over a title. Maybe for hours. Maybe days. Your cursor hovers over the Send To Everyone button and your stomach flips. Everyone?

You figure you don’t really want to write. You’ve been fine up to now with all that shrapnel just rolling around in your brain. What were you even thinking? You’re a hack. A fake. An imposter.

But then one day you click that button. And you go blind for a minute. Again, details may vary. Ok. Breathe. No one’s gonna read it. Who would? No one knows you’re here. You kept it secret from your friends and family. You posted under a pseudonym. You’re swimming in a sea of real writers here. And you don’t know any of them.

So you post another piece. And then something else. You’re kind of getting the hang of it now.

Then you’re out in the real world on Thanksgiving break, grabbing coffee with a friend. You set down your cup and blurt out, “I’ve been writing.”

And as you’re trying to shove the words back in your mouth like those snakes from the fake peanut cans, they smile at you.

“That’s great! You always were so good at writing.”

You scan your memory banks for what they could possibly be talking about. You vaguely remember a former life. Back before. Well you know. All of that. And you did write. And you shared it with folks. And were you scared? Maybe.

“What are you working on? Can I see?”

So you send them a link. Airdrop. Wait. Did it go through? No. Try again. Still no? Ok. Just text. And they click on the link. Finally. Technology—what a wonderful world.

“Wait. Why is it asking me to pay $80?”

“Oh, shit. No. I forgot it does that. I have no idea how to turn it off. Just skip it.”

“So you want me to skip paying?”

“Oh lort. Yes. Please. Do not pay me.”

So they read it later. And they text you.
“It’s really good! I love the part about the subflooring.”

They liked it.

And the next one.

So you keep on. And you start hearing something familiar. You realize it’s your voice. The one you didn’t remember you had. The one that was hiding behind the quiet polite forgotten you. And you notice your friend doesn’t comment on the next one. Or the next. And you figure they’re just not reading. But you kind of don’t care. And you think to yourself what a wonderful world this writing thing is.

You’ve found some other Substackers who read your stuff and sometimes get it. And this voice? It’s the only you they’ve ever known. And all of a sudden, you feel like a writer. Not just someone who’s been writing.

You have a voice.
And a style, kind of.
And… like… a self.
So you keep writing in and of and about
What a Wonderful World this is.

HERE’S THE MIXTAPE

Details May Vary

Creep—Radiohead
Under Pressure—Train
Stubborn Love—The Lumineers
Luckiest Man—The Wood Brothers
Semi-Charmed Life—Third Eye Blind
We’re Onto Something—Kings of Leon & Zach Bryan
What A Wonderful World—Louis Armstrong

listen here

You should check out Stories from the Jukebox and all of the prompts so far. You can start here:

The Southern Copywriter blog

What a Wonderful World

There’s a lot more where this comes from — sign up here so you don’t miss the next one…

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5 months ago · 8 likes · 7 comments · MJ Polk

Are you ready for Thanksgiving? Here’s a little primer, if you need it. I hope you like it:

So I asked , “…what if we’re just minding our own business and working on our checkbook and also that project in the bathroom and we figure out that we might actually almost have a hero but that would be another story because we already posted this one?”

And the boy said no limits. So. I mean.

And look it’s a bold move to add anything to the pot after ’s submission. And I’m not saying it’s the right move. It’s most assuredly not.

But I already had it queued up for 9:28AM, so here we go:

My brother is up there visiting the fam who all live on the same street. When he walked over to Aunt Eleanor’s this morning, I asked him to see if Uncle Doobie had a very specific size of scrap wood—25” x 16.5”.

As it was told to me, the convo went something like this:

“It’s for Grace?”

“Yessir.”

He got out his measuring tape and ambled toward his workshop. He came out with a piece that’s 24” x 16.5”.

My brother texted.
“Close enough?”

Close enough.

“Your uncle loves you, Grace.”

And he’s right. He always has. For the first six weeks of my life? I lay on his stomach, and we napped. Every day. That’s some kind of bonding, right?

Around the time his daughter was born, we moved to England. So that’s how things happen.

When I was 16, he taught me how to drive. Last Spring, he came down and painted the trim on my house. Now, he makes me extra-thick coffee when I’m there for Thanksgiving. And every year when he goes hunting, he scopes out a super sappy pine tree and brings me back the stickiest, piney fresh fatwood starter for my fire pit.

He never swooped in and saved me like a hero does. And there were things I needed saving from. They say if they’d known, they would have. But I don’t know how they didn’t.

So, no swooping. No saving. And not really anything that’s standout-special. But he did have a piece of scrap wood for my project today. And that’s love on a 24” x 16.5” platter, right there.

Still.
Y’all.

“Hero” is a strong word. I don’t know if I can bestow it. But if I ever did?
It’d prolly be on him.

No mixtape for this one. It’d probably be the same as the one on my other Heroes piece.

Check out the Stories from the Jukebox Heroes prompt, and all the rest of them, too.

Stories from the Jukebox

"Heroes"

Thanks Jennifer N. Haddock, for headlining Where Is My Mind? week, by Pixies! I’m also thankful for all the writers who submitted — our readers who liked, commented, and shared those terrific stories! How would you like to pick our prompt? Get more info…

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5 months ago · 14 likes · 16 comments · MJ Polk

Check out this story next.