CEASE & DESIST NOTICE
From the Eternal Shadows of Edgar Allan Poe
(Poet, Raven-Wrangler, Professional Mourner, and Unwilling Patron Saint of Goth Merch)
To the merchants, influencers, and deeply confused e-girls responsible for the mass commodification of my literary corpse:
I write this by flickering candlelight, with a weary hand and a heart full of undying regret, to formally demand you cease and desist from peddling my suffering as aesthetic lifestyle branding.
It has come to my attention that the tragic themes of The Raven—loss, madness, the crushing weight of grief—have been repackaged into glitter-drenched t-shirts reading “Nevermore but Make It Fashion,” velvet chokers adorned with tiny birds, and scented candles called Lenore’s Lament (which, for the record, smell like synthetic lilac and taxidermy).
You have committed the following literary atrocities:
Printing my anguished face on makeup bags with the phrase “Goth Daddy.”
Selling pillows embroidered with “Quoth the Raven: I Can’t Even.”
Designing lingerie sets inspired by my dead wife Virginia, which I cannot even begin to emotionally unpack.
This rampant desecration of my work is not homage—it is heresy stitched in lace. You have turned my poetic despair into content, my madness into merch, and my bird into a branding icon. The Raven was never meant to be cute. He was a symbol of unrelenting sorrow—not something to slap on the side of your Stanley cup.
Effective immediately:
Do not tag me in your Halloween thirst traps. I see everything from the beyond.
Cease referring to your goth lifestyle as being “very Poe-coded.”
And for the love of decency, stop editing videos of me with anime sparkle filters and trap remixes of The Tell-Tale Heart.
Failure to comply will result in the following hauntings:
— Your eyeliner will always smudge unevenly.
— Your Ouija board will only say “Cringe.”
— And the next raven you see will bite.
Sincerely, and ever morbidly,
Edgar Allan Poe
Author, Raven’s Keeper, Father of the Macabre, and Disrespected Fashion Icon