The Half Paper Moon EXCLUSIVE

Jean felt her hand traveling with trepidation toward his knee.

“We gotta make him so jealous that he leaves me alone for good.”

Jean shook his head. “I can't have... You know… my girl will kill me.”

Barbara laughed, but it came out shrill

Kxzzzzzzzzshhhhh———

The static rumbled. MTV Presents

MTV Radio Presents

Behind The Music

“Ya know. If I knew what I knew today back in the day, ya know, if I knew, I'd certainly not go into the drug scene like I did. I'd realize that making my art speak was more important than getting into shat that the other producer blokes and dodgy tossers that said they'd make me famous.”

“Well, we certainly are interested in your latest album: Dreamz. This stream of consciousness is a new sort of way to get into different acoustics, sounds and—”

“Ya, this is how I feel like I'm reborn. A Phoenix.”

Albumen (Album number 3) Dreamsz

Dear Death: The clouds rumbled into a screenshot of my death. Why can't I imagine my birth, I keep dreaming of a future of deaths. Deaths

Zzzzshhhhhhcrrrrttackkkkk!

“John! Shit!” Barbara wiped her mouth, as if the sleeve of her hoodie would erase the kiss.

Jean growled, feeling guilty that he even pretended to kiss Barbara in the car. His girlfriend will definitely kill him. Even as a ruse, they both seemed to get into it, way too fast. (“Damn girl, you sure you're not into sex?” Jean said. It got hot. Steamy. Hands on hips, nibbling on lower lip, hands under shirt.)

“Barbie, where you going?” Jean Almost tripped as he tried to rush out of the car door, his holy pant leg (he used the same pair of jeans for 10 years as a traveling carnie.) getting stuck in the door.

Barbara felt a deep flush hit her face, red and blotchy.

She couldn't stop seeing John’s reaction to their raunchy kiss.

His hair looked so neatly made up, she thought. Yet, his eyes were silently in a terror that went beyond his jealously.

Wide amber eyes that looked like they were a gun that went off accidently and blood got on everything. Every created crevice and corner and fold. Covered in red.

“John! I'm Sorry!” Barbara yelled as John ran away from the beach.

‘Irvine Lake is so beautiful at night. Barbara was so beautiful. Now, she's gone,” John’s brain broiled over inside of his rattling head.

We are now back to our regularly scheduled program: MTV Radio

Zzzzssjuhtschtschrsch——!!zzzzzzzzzzzztsssch!

The static on the radio rumbled. The radio was up high from previously raging out to Dancing Queen.

“This album has a track that's particularly beautiful, called, “The Lake Trembled Rebirth.” this is such a delicately placed number that uses the backdrop of cathedral bells from the famous Notre Dame as we hear the wailing of a woman, staticky and brutal. Ethereal cooing starts. The most startling voice singing in what sounds like tongues or a mystical language—-”

“STOP! No, John, NOO!”

The scream pierced through Jean’s heart. He halted in the sand, feeling out of breath.

“I’m leaving this place forever! Jean and I are leaving to a new circus and a new life!”

The lie was so half-assed, Jean laughed with a guffaw, almost falling near the lake’s edge.

“No we ain't, Barbara!” Jean caught up to the mismatched pair. “We ain't going nowhere together. You just need to tell this boy to leave you alone!” Jean almost snarled out.

John frowned, “So you just leave a lady like that after romancing her? Hah. If you even call that romance.”

Jean stood up straight, scoffing. “Nah. Sure as hell, I know my idea of romance is way better than your weird ass crap.”

Barbara looked to be in tears. “Jean. Jean!” Jean stopped grimacing at John to look at Barbara.

“Why are you messing things up?”

Barbara’s blue eyes blinked with tears.

We interrupt this program of Behind The Music to share this to leading Vocal poet: Paul Stewart:

I don't think you deserve my last letter and I can't write it no matter how hard I feel, I can't stay mad at you even though I feel like I have every right to be mad, you deserted me because I told you one positive thing that happened in my shitty, sad, angry, pathetic life, and you abandoned me because you felt I needed to hide my good news for months if possible because your life was not going well either. I feel like if I were to go into the air all my poetry would evaporate, and I'd like to

Go back to Adam’s rib, to dust, to lost energy, to the angry black hole that situated me into existence.

A lost haiku:

Air puffs from a black

Pond collapse into your mouth

I breathe it in, faint.

“Shut your fucking stupid mouth! You crazy, dumbass motherfucker!”

Tschhhh-slappp!

The slap is like a sting in the air and they all feel it. Barbara slapped Jean.

“We don't need to insult him. Lets just go,” Barbara said to Jean.

John looked overwhelmed. He can't speak.

‘Just like momma. She collapsed in her own spit like a vomiting waterfall. Then, daddy went and touched her like how Barbara got touched in the car,’ John’s mind strangled his vocal cords.

“Just like momma,” John said in a zombie stare.

Barbara’s mouth opened in shock, her blue eyes red from crying.
Barbara grabbed Jean’s hand. Jean ripped away the gesture.

This show is too long, the audience won't be able to hold its attention for this long, the executive producer said in the background. Unseen, the executive was wearing bunny slippers, clutching his mug of coffee like a string of pearls.

Play, “Free Bird.”

The three estranged young adults ran off in different directions away from each other. Night fell, morning came. Free Bird played in the dim, lazy, plain sunlight. Static rumbled like an old friend after the song ended.