astere’s archives

things I wished I could scream out loud trying to get through my 20s she/they

[atastere]

[atastere]

modern love I guess.

[mournfulroses]

Sara Torres, from her novel titled "X Is Where I Am," orginally published in March 2026

[fantodsdhrit]

minus zest a dangle from purchases

there an over air of rubies at cheeks of interviewing experts

somebody

is becoming you —

taking on your voice your absence your

rouge

allegorical & aglitter

is it you in posture of polythene affect

swayed by a self that knows not a self it flails its arms

along

flags of heartstopping departures

what they own is a slow learner exchange

beverages rainbow cold as you swing out

[atastere]

and one day you’ll finally delete them off everything; because one day it finally gets better, and you won’t feel the need to do what they’ve never done for you: show up.

[dailydoseofsun]

i hate to say it, but it breaks my heart a little to light the candles again this year knowing that i have not yet outgrown the shoes i've worn since i was thirteen. the flame begins to flicker and i wonder if the lighter is on its last spark too. even so, i'll clasp my hands together as the desire eats me whole: please, don't let me keep waiting for nothing.

[atastere]

a message I never sent

I hope one day you’ll choose yourself over lust, alcohol and drugs, even if you could not do it for us, I hope one day you’ll be able to do it for another person if not for yourself; I hope you’ll realise that you’re lovable and capable of it; I hope you heal yourself and I also hope you’ll apologise to those whom you’ve hurt and hold yourself accountable for the people you’ve traumatised, yet I’ll never be able to forget the first time you told me you loved me, I’ll never be able to forget the fact that looking at you it felt as if looking into a mirror, we were too much alike to be able to function without that splash of toxicity and adrenaline, but I’ll never be able to forget how your touch feels; I know I made the right decision when I rejected your offer to sleep together after months of no contact, because all I have ever been to you was a source of comfort, understanding, and need: I was the first person to show up for you, and you were the last to show up for me, and in that moment I laughed at myself, and realised my worth; as much as it hurts, you were not worthy of me, of everything I gave to you: you treated it as an intoxicating game, I treated it as what could have been the foundation of change and a new beginning together.

[atastere]

[atastere]

prague.

[remanence-of-love]

[atastere]

your 20s are calling

[1nn32dem0n5]

nights of excess

I bind my soul to the fleshlight of my dreams and worhip at the altar of it’s entrance. She’s not here anymore and I’m alone and thirsty and I’m so hungry I chew on honey with salt and unburnt bread. My shirt, tattered like toilet paper, by your top-shelf fake nails, barely hangs. I bleed but I care not for lost blood but for the molly lost among the blood. I crush another superman with my trusty ring and sniff the toilet seat. I soak and step back out amidst the sweat, santal and smoke.

[atastere]

I wished nostalgia was only temporary

[atastere]

to the one who got away:

Some time ago you wrote me a letter to which I never responded — as I was caught up in my selfishness —, but I want you to know that I have thought about it for some time; wishes don’t always reflect reality, but it does not mean that we should keep them in (it’s you who actually reminded me that).

Neither me nor you will ever be able to change the past, but we can both change ourselves, and I truly believe in you. You helped me find parts of myself that I thought I lost; you helped me fall in love with myself a little bit more. Life is a funny thing and it keeps teaching you.

I don’t want you to be a lesson, nor a distant memory. I really tried to hate you, but I’ve always seen you for who you are, and who you are is someone I will always carry in my heart.

I wrote you a few messages, which maybe they can help when you feel alone, maybe not, but with you it has always been easy to be vulnerable. Please be kind and vulnerable towards yourself from now on.

[atastere]

Retrospective

People keep talking about what if and what could have been, and sometimes I let myself wonder: if I had that one-time access to a time machine, there’s one thing I would have done differently.

One thing I wish I could change, modify, adjust; whatever name makes it hurt less, just to relive it once more, the only regret I carry, and maybe be able to undo it.

But I don’t know if you’d want to do the same — if you’d care the way you once promised you would; I trusted you with my whole heart, and even now I don’t know if you could, if you could put your ego aside, look into my eyes, and mean it — without hidden intentions, without soft white lies.

I don’t know if you could change that one thing you did that hurt me the most.

Maybe not the whole reason, but enough of it, enough to tip the scale of our heartbreak: would you go back and change the thing I defended you for?

Sometimes I wonder if I jinxed us, if I was the one who bet too hard on our relationship being great, despite the flaws we both saw; I chose to look past them, to sail toward a foreign shore, believing we’d find land together.

I bid on us with my heart, and I lost it all. I never wanted you to take the fall, but my heart had already sunk — weighted down by more than I could carry.

I don’t blame you, I don’t blame me; and I don’t think either of us should live in shame — the shame we made from selfish moments, from the fractured parts of who we are.

A shame we placed on ourselves, convincing our souls to act on desire, knowing we wouldn’t be the same after our hearts collapsed.

And that collapse, it didn’t destroy us, it only damaged us; because together, we were stronger.

We did care.

Honestly, I don’t know where it went wrong: even though we know the facts, even though we know what happened, I still wonder — did we ever really listen without shutting down?

How open were we, really, if we’re being honest?

[petaltexturedskies]

Sylvia Plath, The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol. I: 1940-1956

[atastere]

some soft spoken poetry