Wednesday, January 5, 2011

A lightless void of perpetual despair



The Browns make me sad.

When I say “sad,” I don’t mean the “Robin Williams-smiling-through-his-tears” sweet, longing ache, which I understand can be therapeutic. No, watching this team turns me into an emo teenager who writes awful, angsty poetry under the name “OnyxRavenWolf” and posts Nine Inch Nails lyrics on his black-and-purple bordered MySpace page. And the only therapy the Browns inspire is the kind that costs $80 an hour.

I could come here and discuss the team’s draft needs, possible replacements for Coach Mangini, and changing the defensive scheme from a 3-4 to a 4-3, but I see no point, not when every breath we take on this poisoned planet leads irrevocably to the eternal blackness of the fetid grave. We are merely the bitter sustenance of worms and centipedes, and as such it makes no matter whether or not Mike Holmgren fixes the porous right side of the offensive line or finds a wide receiver with separation capability.

No one can understand my undiluted blood-pure anguish, which spins in ceaseless tumult like a billion bile-yellow Terrible Towels in the fourth-quarter tomb of Cleveland Browns Stadium. Misery is an intoxicating brew - the foretaste of an endless bleak night where 41-9 has all the meaning of a dawg’s pathetic dying yelps.

No solace for the unforgiven; no anodyne for a coach too stubborn and scared to go for it on fourth-and-goal in a meaningless game. My mascara cannot hide the tears in my eyes as I watch another bad season lead to another sideline teardown. I am midnight roses strewn across cracked concrete. I cry even as I write. All is a dark pool of ebon that consumes even the brightest light of pointless hope.

Outcast.

Fallen.

Industrial music out the ying-yang.

Waiting for a year that will never come.