Gosh what a couple of egg heads those Goths were / A real match forged in cartoonish annihilation / They were the talk of the neighborhood for the better part of the season & shook all the pine needles down to weave baskets for their Chinese-crested named Thing / Then as quickly as they came round they were outta here / We were watching claymations on our desktops when the ice in our glasses started clinking / The Mrs. She overanalyzes half the patterns when their long black hearse pulled up & they started loading their coffin shaped furniture / That that gothic couple was the best of us / Real sweet hearts / They fit right in beautifully kinda contrasting what the rest of us are doing with our outlandish but more traditional decorating / But that poor Shelly went a bit tilted trying to ruin their lives didn’t she? / I heard it ended in a couple of restraining orders & drove poor Morticia & Gomez straight outta town she did / But the Mrs. Addams chic—who was really lovely by the way—did this big showy spell in front of the house & it scared the Jesus out of Shelly / Mrs. Addams recited beatnik poetry & scuttled around completely in character & she stopped & pulled her dress up & revealed her nylons right in front of the whole jolly gosh darn Christmas light jamboree & then vanish outta here in her hearse leaving that sexy leg lamp as a housewarming present for the next masochists who try to tête-à-tête with Mrs. Peacock Lane / And these new gentlethems in top hats & monocles have really been playing par for the course against this very unique menace to society who is in her own way a beautifully underachieving supervillain with limitless creativity in a hot pink pant suit & a stash embroidered PEACOCK LANE. | The End.
RJ Equality Ingram works as a used bookseller for Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette. Their first collection of poetry The Autobiography of Nancy Drew is forthcoming from White Stag Publishing in early 2024. RJ received their MFA in creative writing from Saint Mary’s College of California with concentrations in poetry & creative nonfiction. More work can be found in Phoebe Journal, Miniskirt Magazine & Citron Review among others. RJ’s cat Brenda lost a leg designing her memory palace.