In Loving Memory of Annconcillia Bonareri Kombo


Beside your bed we sat, in silence and prayer,
Hoping for flickers, for breath, for a stare.
The minutes crawled slowly, the darkness too deep,
But you stayed still, in your quiet sleep.

We whispered your name, we begged, we cried,
Held onto hope as the hours passed by.
But this time, Mama, you didn’t fight
You slipped away softly into the night.

No final word, no parting sigh,
Just heavy air and one last goodbye.
The dawn came cold, but your warmth remained,
In stories and memories your soul engraved.

So rest, dear Mama, in skies so wide
We carry your love on the other side.
And though you never turned back to see,
A part of you still walks with me.

Originally  written by Micko.
April.2025.©️
All rights reserved.

Is she really gone?
I tell myself she’ll come back
And dreadfully, I wait.

I still can’t wrap my head around it.
Tears cloud my eyes.
Have you forgotten your children?
Are you watching over us?
Do you still pray for us?
Will you ever come back?

Some days are too hard to bear.
Sometimes we just need a shoulder.
But ours have grown so heavy.
Even laughter feels hollow.
Will you ever come back?

You used to tell us:
“One day I’ll be gone, and you’ll miss me.”
Your words, once sharp.
Your death, like thunder.
We watched you slip away,
Piece by piece,
Day by day.

If I could time travel,
I’d run...
Far from this brutal truth.
Tell me…
Will you ever come back

They say life is a show that must go on,
but what happens when the show is over,
when the music fades,
the sun sets, and the curtains close?

Will everyone forget the wrong I've done,
the pain I caused?
Will they clap when the show is over—
find reasons for me to be missed?

Will the ones I love—
when they feel empty—
keep me
in their memory?

I've caused pain,
made people cry,
broken hearts—
but will any of that matter
when the curtains close?
Tears have been shed.
Will they care what I've done?
Will they stutter my name?

Will I be able to rest easy—
knowing everyone thinks of me fondly,
and leaves out the rest?

The ones who once hated me,
will they be able to forget,
and love me for the memory I bring—
leave out the rest?

Please, find a reason for me to be missed.
Forget the rest.

Time is ticking—
I only have so much—
time,
before the curtain
makes the credits roll.

Please, don't resent me
for the things I've done.

Leave the hatred,
leave the pain,
the tears—
with the closing curtains.
Find reasons to miss me.
Let me live as a fond memory—
before my time comes,
and the curtains close.

We met at the edge of a battlefield,
Hearts armored, but fingers reaching.
The silence between us was thunder,
Louder than all the things we weren’t teaching.

You said, “Let’s meet in the middle,”—but where?
Between your fire and my sea,
Between your fists and my folded wings,
Between the storm and what’s left of me?

I offered softness—you saw it as slight.
You gave control—called it love, called it right.
But what of the bruises we call boundaries?
What of the nights I cried out of sight?

A room with two chairs still leaves one cold,
When one keeps shrinking to fit the mold.
I bent till I broke, whispering “peace,”
But my voice became ash, my breath a lease.

You carved your truth in unyielding stone,
I scribbled mine in skin and bone.

Now I sit in the echo, quiet and raw,
Wondering if “halfway” ever kept the law
Of hearts that beat with uneven might
Or if we both just lost the fight.

So I ask, not in bitterness, but in ache,
Not in anger, but for memory’s sake:
Is there actually enough room for compromise,
When one soul drowns and the other survives?

painting my nails seems so unproductive
when i could be studying for math or german or history
but i'm thinking about you.

i don't know your favorite color, or i would have painted them that shade.
though, unless your favorite color is
pink
purple
silver
crusty blue or
clear
then i guess i couldn't anyway because those are the only colors i have.

If you are like me—
then you have seen blood.

Not metaphor.
Not symbol.
Just blood.

Without cause.
Without reason.
Just red. Just there.

If you are like me
you’ve seen hate.

Not the kind they teach in textbooks—
but the kind that smiles
through a courtroom lie.

The kind that hides behind injustice,
like a priest behind a curtain.

A petty victim of personal treason—
all sharp edges, no remorse.

You don’t speak of it.
You wear it.

In the back of your throat.
In your knuckles when you laugh too hard.
In the way your fingers twitch
when the room gets too quiet—
when the monkeys
jump and shout
in your ******* brain.

If you are like me,
you stopped believing in second chances
the day you saw it sold—

dressed up like the mother you never had.
Perfume, pearls, and a permanent vacancy
where love was supposed to live.

I remember
the look in her face
when I saw what the razor had done.

I remember
what they said—
“Can we look inside your house?”

I remember
the silence after.

And the fragments of the bullet.

How your lies
filled the room
like water fills lungs—
and I’m still
grasping for air.

No one ever apologized.
No one ever saw me.

They saw a story
they could sleep through.

And worst of all—
you never once
thanked me.

This is not a poem.
This is not a metaphor.

This is
my ******* blood
on the floor.

And still—

I opened the door.

The one
whose contents
lay behind the smoke
of mirrors
and a house
of cards

I remember when the world was a honey *** —
sweet and endless,
when the biggest worry was a blustery day
and whether Piglet would blow away.
The sky was wide, and the ground was soft,
and the trees whispered secrets if you listened long enough.

Back then, I knew the Bare Necessities by heart:
A river’s hum, the sun’s warm kiss,
feet splashing through a world that never asked for more
than laughter and a little bit of wonder.
Baloo taught me how to sway with the breeze,
to let life be easy —
but no one told me the breeze could turn cold.

They don’t warn you when the Hundred Acre Wood starts to shrink,
when the trees lose their magic
and just become trees.
One day, you wake up and Christopher Robin isn’t coming back —
and you realize you have to be him now.
You have to pack up the toys
and leave the forest behind.

But I miss the forest.
I miss the rustle of leaves that sounded like adventure,
the way a cardboard box was a pirate ship,
or a rocket,
or a house where everything made sense.
Now my ships sink in student loans,
and my rockets crash into expectations.

They said growing up was an adventure —
but no one said it was like Shere Khan waiting in the dark,
all teeth and waiting for you to fail.
No one told me the man-village had rules:
Wear this. Be that. Don’t dream too loud.

But sometimes, when the night is quiet,
I hear Baloo singing in the back of my head.
Sometimes, when the wind shakes the trees,
I swear I see Tigger bouncing through the branches.
And I hold on to those echoes,
those soft, honeyed memories,
because the world gets heavy,
but childhood taught me how to fly.

So maybe I’ll keep a little bit of the forest with me.
Maybe I’ll hum the Bare Necessities when the bills pile up.
Maybe I’ll remember that a blustery day
is just an excuse to hold on tighter to the ones you love.

And maybe, when the world says grow up,
I’ll whisper back —
“Oh, bother.”

In the woods where the wind hums lullabies,
under branches that brush the sky,
lives a bear with a belly full of honey
and a heart stitched in childhood memory.

Winnie.
The. Pooh.
Not just a bear—
but the keeper of our early years,
the echo of laughter between storybook tears,
the soft-spoken truth in bedtime fears.

His house—
tucked under roots,
marked “Mr. Sanders” though we never asked why—
wasn’t just a home,
it was a world.

A mailbox too big, a door too small,
a doormat worn thin from welcoming all—
Tigger’s bounce, Piglet’s squeak,
Eeyore dragging his tail through each week.
A roof that knew the rhythm of rain,
walls that absorbed every growing pain.

And maybe we grew—
our knees outgrew scrapes,
our dreams got new shapes,
but there’s something about that crooked door
that still fits us,
even now.

Because Pooh’s house
was never made of wood and stone.
It was carved in imagination,
lined with pages and patience,
sealed in the syrup of simpler times.

A childhood shrine.
Where days had no clocks
and the only map we needed
was drawn in crayon and hope.

So here’s to the Hundred Acre home—
to the way it held us
when we didn’t know we needed holding.
To the bear who asked for nothing
but a little more honey,
and gave us
a little more magic.

I go back there
every time the world forgets
how to be kind.

Pooh reminds me.
Even now.
And maybe that's the thing about childhood—
it never leaves.

It just waits at the edge of the woods
with a rumbling belly,
and arms
wide
open.

A sheep unshorn, a misfit star,
too wild for wool, too sharp for flocks.
It walked alone where twilight wept,
where mountaintops kissed silver clocks.

Judgment struck like feathered arrows,
but wounds grew wings and took to flight.
"I’ll carve my throne from nameless echoes,
build my own laws beneath the night."

Yet beauty whispered, laced with teeth,
a velvet snarl in hunger’s guise.
The wolves arrived—moonlit beasts,
with gleaming pearls of red-stained lies.

Beauty isn’t soft, nor kind, nor fair,
It’s a rare flame, wild in the air.
A mirage that shifts, a whispered disguise,
Wrapped in illusion, unseen to the eyes.

The sheep stood firm where darkness danced,
while others cursed the sky’s despair.
Was beauty love or sharpened fangs?
A question lost to midnight air.

Bound by fate or freed by choice,
it laughed—"I’ll fall, but not in fear."
For even flight can lead to chains,
and even wolves can disappear.

I stand upon the cliff’s last breath,
Where tides arise and thunder spills.
Scavengers circle, watching, waiting—
Yet life still lingers in my bones.

The clouds above, like silent judges,
Could break and drown my fleeting hope.
Beneath, the ocean coils and beckons,
A fathomless abyss of sorrow.

The silver moon, a gleaming specter,
Summons waves to pull me under.
I teeter on the fragile edge,
One slip, one plunge into the deep.

Lightning snarls—a voice of warning,
A jolt to burn or leave me scarred.
If not with fire, then silent shadows
Will haunt me long beyond this night.

I saw the algae, once alive,
Now ghosts adrift upon the tide.
The trees I passed stood tall together,
Yet whispered falsehoods to the wind.

Serpents coil around their roots,
Whispering promises of power.
Many fall to hollow hunger,
Chasing echoes, craving ruin.

But air is shared, though lungs may differ,
And souls define, not flesh alone.
Roots can mend, bear fruits of wonder—
Change, though feared, is never lost.

If you listen, let it guide you.
Nature bends but bids us rise.
Though the storm may rage relentless,
Yet even storms must bow to light.