What a man says when he can no longer pray... but also can't stop believing

I don't know when I stopped being one. I don't know at what moment I split in two: Abel in the bones, Cain in the blood. The one who implores and the one who curses. The one who awaits your hand and the one who wishes to break it. I walk with both within me, God.

And you know that one of them wants to speak to you, and the other wants to judge you. I write to you from that point where there are no longer prayers, only remnants. Noises. Sores. Scars that throb as if they have a memory of their own. Sometimes I ask you why you left me alive. Other times I ask you why you didn't let me die. Abel believes it was mercy. Cain knows it was disdain. I have seen death unmasked. I saw its eyes fixed on mine. They were not eyes of judgment, they were eyes of someone who recognized an equal.

I have taken my body to places where morality shudders. I have loved like a shipwreck, hated like an inverted prayer, sought pleasure like someone licking a wound to see if it’s still alive. I have driven towards ravines as if they were temples, I have peered over high floors like someone testing the loyalty of the void, I have renounced you like someone tearing a name from their skin. I have tasted psychedelia, shadow, excess, the alleys where flesh becomes a question and the soul becomes a distant rumor. 

And you, God... you don't even flinch. Your silence is a language I never learned. Your indifference is an altar without fire. Your presence is a shadow behind another shadow.

Abel seeks you. Cain defies you. I merely survive between the two. You, who are God, dare. Curse me if you are going to. But don't keep silent like cowards. If I have profaned you, take away my faith. If I failed you, break me entirely. If I don't matter to you, tell me, clearly, without hidden messages or ones to interpret. What I cannot bear is this silence that throbs within my ribs like an animal wanting to escape. I live under the mark of Cain, though Abel still breathes.

Both walk with me: one weeping, the other burning. I don't want to speak to a lukewarm God. I want to speak to the God who set the cosmos ablaze with a gesture. I want to speak to the God who allows me to exist. I want to speak to the God whose pulse trembles for a second when he sees the marvel of his creation.

Because you know me. You know my prayers are not sweet. You know I have accepted my guilt, I have repeated it a thousand times, on my knees, sitting, standing, that my faith hurts and smells of iron, that my doubts have sharp teeth, that they pierce me every second to remind me. You know I don't pray: I demand. I provoke you. I write to you from the edge of pain and anguish. And yet, here I am. Invoking one who does not answer me. Loving one who does not embrace. Believing in one who does not descend. Persisting in one who does not speak to me. God of God, I don't know if you hear me or simply enjoy watching me bleed. But I confess something to you that neither of them— neither Abel, nor Cain—dares to tell you: “If you don't exist, I unravel. If you exist, I am condemned. Because the only thing worse than a cruel God is a silent God. And I, under the mark of Cain, am still alive without knowing you. I keep searching for you without knowing if you want me to find you.”

I keep speaking to you like someone beating the chest of the sky, hoping it will breathe. Your silence is my terror. But my voice, this one that cuts through the night like a broken arrow, is proof that I have not yet given up. God of God, if what I am matters to you, manifest yourself. If not, set me free. Because there are only two paths for a man split in two: the faith that burns or the freedom that kills.