WAITING

Gustavo Guerra

Dear God, I cried this morning while I read the book of Genesis. It says you created the heavens and the earth, that you put lights in the sky to divide day from night and to give light to the earth. I tried to talk to you afterwards, knees curled beneath me, as I wept into my charcoal gray blanket, but the words would not come out. Only the sorrow. The loneliness. The agony that made my stomach cramp to contain, in vain, the moan escaping from my lips. There were too many people around me. The Book says you looked upon the day and the night and you called it good. My night, my God, is not good. No day separates it. My night began seventeen years ago when I became a killer: a Moses; a David; a Cain. They had families and spoke to you face-to-face. They ruled your people and performed miracles and wrote poetry and being one of the many should be enough, but it’s not. I am not satisfied with the absence of love

and of passion. The type that shakes the foundations of the earth and echoes into the distant future. Nor am I satisfied with life behind the wire. I cry because I look at the sun and despite its brightness, its light does not penetrate my circumstances. On the sixth day you created man in your image. Thousands of years later you created me to love and to have and to laugh. Except, I do none of these. I exist in night, in darkness, waiting for your light to shine. I wait for the good. Your son, Gus.