LINGER

September 08, 2026 | 6:00 P.M.

LITERARY: POETRY CATEGORY

"LINGER"

We become so focused on what is lost, 

we don’t see the person we are becoming.

Sweat drips down my face,

my feet stuck to the ground like glue.

A loud, angry voice screaming my name

looms closer,

extinguishing the roaring noise 

of my quietly retreating playmates.

“I don’t want to sleep”, I protest,

wincing from pain as the grumpy lady

drags me home, pinching my ear.

“Mmm, paborito mo yan ‘diba?”, 

she says, handing me a slice of chocolate cake. 

My face flushed from embarrassment, 

I refuse to look at the old woman

patting the beads of salt on my skin. 

Her warm lips touch my rosy cheek,

“Sorry na, ‘nak. Kailangan mo ‘to para lumaki ka”

I did not understand her then.

I thought sleep was a punishment 

that held me back from exploring the 

limitless wonders of childhood. 

But there were nights 

when I would wake to the cold touch 

of my mother’s hand as she brushes my hair and 

kisses me goodbye. 

The room was still dark,

my eyes are heavy from dreaming;

Yet she would leave before I could 

fully understand what was happening. 

She left. They left. 

Before I could even say–

Stay. 

Linger. 

Don’t go. 

Words I cried out as a child–

wanting to play outside a little longer;

wanting her to stay with me forever. 

Years later, I found myself 

whispering the same words.

Only this time, 

I was asking life

not to leave me behind.

Squeezing past the weary faces, 

I get off at the train station.

My numb legs drag me home

as my mind wanders to the

graveyard of buried dreams, 

drifted relationships, and the

quiet exhaustion 

from having to keep walking. 

Then my feet stop. 

Sitting by the bench, 

an elderly couple exchanges loving stares,

talking as if the world around them

has disappeared.

The corners of my lip rise to the

direction of my heavy eyelids. 

Reluctantly, I walked up to them, 

and without a word, handed a brown paper bag. 

It was chocolate cake–

a reward to myself after a

long, tiring day of duty. 

Feeling as if a weight has been lifted 

off my shoulders,

I sauntered on the way to my apartment.

For so long, 

I punished myself 

For

not figuring my own life out; 

for 

never feeling good enough; 

for the 

crushing weight of ‘what ifs’ and ‘what could’ve beens.’

I kept holding on to the 

withering leaves of the past because

I was so afraid of losing what once was;

that I forgot to notice the budding flowers of the

person I was becoming. 

Growing up, 

I kept searching for answers

to how life should be lived–

not realizing that 

I only had to remember 

the person I was 

before the world told me

who I was supposed to become. 

The adventurous girl 

who wanted to play with her friends.

The sweet girl

who loved her mother beyond understanding.

The little girl

who believed chocolate cake heals life’s scars. 

Maybe growing up

Is not about leaving her behind.

Maybe it is about 

learning to carry her with me.

Clutching my bag, I see my friend 

sitting on the doorsteps of my apartment,

waiting for me to come home from my hospital shift.

And suddenly, 

I understand. 

I spent so much of my life 

chasing a place

where I thought I would be happy

that I forgot 

I was already living. 

Life was never leaving me behind.

The little girl in me 

was only growing wings 

to come home to herself.

Written by: Hannah Frances Pautan/ UST Nursing Journal