ETHER DIARIES

controlled breaths | uncontrolled thoughts

Across the River, Eros

Published by

Mark Andrew Cruz

on

When I was younger and still believed in love, I went through a failed love affair so dramatic, I half expected Zeus to intervene. I didn’t write to win anyone back. I wrote to figure out what the hell had just happened. And because apparently, when I’m heartbroken, I speak in iambic pentameter and accuse people of being demons from Hades. 
It’s not about closure. It’s about catharsis. 
It’s about what happens when you fall in love with someone who feels divine—
and then realize they were just passing through your myth. This poem will resonate with those na nilandi at pinaasa.

Across the River, Eros

Who are you, oh fallen Olympian?

Are you a poet, a musician… or a thespian?

For from your lips, nothing spills but song:

Serenades of love, sonnets where I belong.

Your arrows struck, this heart undone,

My soul now weak, beneath your sun,

This lifeless world revived by your beauty,

Captured by your grace, oh tempting deity!

But as I seek the warmth of your caress,

You have flown away, left me breathless

,Across the River Styx, I saw your shadows,

Slowly fading, as I chase you in the shallows.

Where are you, oh radiant creature?

Why cross over, and leave your stature?

Or are you no god, but Hades’ kin—

a demon cloaked in love, luring me in?

Leave a comment

Hello,

I’m Macoy Cruz

Macoy is, ironically, my professional name. Before residency, there were probably only two people who actually called me that. Then I had to get my name embroidered on my residency white coat. It cost ₱9 per letter, and I realized it would be cheaper if I used a nickname I barely used.

So I did.

People who knew me before residency would occasionally hear someone call me that and look confused, like, Who is he? People who met me after residency, meanwhile, would be like, Who is Mark?

I was diagnosed with depression in 2018. It has relapsed a few times since then.

Most of the time, you probably wouldn’t know. I still go to work. I teach. I see patients. I answer messages. I buy groceries. Life continues looking remarkably ordinary even when, internally, it doesn’t feel ordinary at all.

Writing became one of the ways I deal with that. It forces me to take whatever has been circling inside my head and put it somewhere else for a while.

Sometimes I understand it better afterward.

Sometimes I just make it funny.

Let’s connect

Recent posts