joseph bermudez

messages that i cant send.

[achillesinhighheels]

Photography by Luo Yang

[medievalcat]

Shangri-La Suite (2016)

[driflloon]

tin gao by ana takahashi

[uncommonlypastel]

1:30 AM - Sept 27 2025

It’s been a year now, and I can finally say I’ve moved on. I’m not completely healed, but I’ve made peace with it.

I used to speak about it openly, but these days I hold back, afraid that sharing too much will come across as venting or being overwhelming. At the same time, I fear that staying silent will turn me into husk or make me invisible.

And so I walk through each day knowing that no one will ever truly see the depth of my pain or understand the weight of what I carry except me.

After all that has happened, I may not be the most morally upright person in the room, but I know I am not cruel. I may not always be good, yet I can still be kind, and I can still be gentle.

It's been a year now, I survived.

[uncommonlypastel]

12:41 AM - June 12, 2024

Hi!

I know we are stepping on the same solid ground again. All the memories and its patrons came flooding and I just wish you can read the words I couldn't speak out loud or send through.

There are so many things I want to tell you, but for now, I just want say that I'm having these little baby steps on moving forward. Moments that I cherished still crushes my gut but I always remember that at some point, you were the love of my life and you will always be my always.

At some point, I tried forgetting and suppressing but someone told me, "Joseph, you can forget his name but not the memories.". I realized, how could I? You're my "first experience" and "first time" person.

You can forget the color of my eyes, forget the way I laugh, forget all the things that we used to be. I'm happy for your life and I still love you but I know there will never be a chance for us and it's fine. Reflections of you still paramount the concept of everything and it's fine. I'll pivot from the darkness I'm currently living in and maybe make something beautiful out of it.

I can forget your name, but not our memories.

Please enjoy your life. We'll meet again.

[uncommonlypastel]

2:22 PM - April 3, 2024

Well, I still dream of you in colors that don't exist.

I guess that means nothing.

It still hurting but I'm better now.

[uncommonlypastel]

5:03 - March 23, 2024

It seems you moved on but I'm still just the same, but I'm doing better. There are still moments of sadness lingering in my deepest self. The realization of the possible outcome that I might not heal and be resentful forever scares me and everyday I still wonder if you ever miss my love.

I'm trying to be kinder, but god knows how hard it is to be kind knowing how people treated me less. It's hard to be kind knowing you watched me burn in flames. The rush of anger and sadness keeps pulling my wings down. It's hard to be kind when my soul is deprived of truth and honesty. It's hard to be kind if my sense of love has been shattered and distrupted with shards of regret and betrayal.

The sad thing was my love for you when we were a nobody doesn't mean anything to you. It's the new songs collected from your solitude tells the substantiate truth behind those curated antics. I want to think of it as a peacful outturn, yet I dread to admit that I hate how it's only candy for eyes and ears. I might be wrong, maybe it's not for me.

Well, I don't want to know..

It's been a while

I wish you well (or not)

[uncommonlypastel]

11:17 PM - January 8, 2024

Everyday I wonder if you ever miss my love.

[uncommonlypastel]

6:58 PM - January 7, 2024

Sometimes I hope you still sear your pork on your sinigang and your mind wanders to the thought of me. Sometimes I hope you hear Chaka Khan or Erykah Badu and you remember my eyes lighting up for such a nice voice. Sometimes I hope when you apply hyaluronic acid to your skincare routine, you remember how I was scolding you for using Master facial wash. Sometimes I wonder if you still remember my wide face in all the memories we had. Sometimes I wish you were still here, but if you wanted to be, then you would be.

You chose to leave, oh well.

Now you're just a stranger with all my secrets and dreams.

[uncommonlypastel]

1:45 AM - Jan 4, 2024

You're walking away, breaking the news, to be a good man for someone new.

Sorry, I couldn't be good like him.

Hearing your name on the lips of the crowd was painful.

Until the end, I did all my best just for you, all in vain.

Now, in your absence, I stand alone.

[uncommonlypastel]

3:33 AM - Jan 2, 2024

Everyone knows that you're too good for me, don't they? You're a cheater and a liar, and I'm just some "lazy" who's too sad to be loved. I'm the crazy "manipulative" ex-boyfriend, right?

You like to talk to total strangers and put them on a pedestal. At your summit, you saw shivering pines and walls of color You were skeptical about staying inside our universe as if it resembled a cell. But I was all there, saw all the shadows of my own despair, yet my offerings knew no bounds. You deceived me during my weakest and deserted me when I needed you the most.

But every daydream we had got to say goodnight. You didn't dance through the world's embrace as I did under the gaze of the yellow stars. Now I'm seeing you run through the yellow light, and I hope you'll enjoy it while it lasts because I did at sixteen.

[uncommonlypastel]

2:42 AM - Jan 2, 2024

I hate mind games, when you have to second guess your own decisions because you did not get the response that you anticipated. Was I ever good enough? Was it just because you were not in love? Or was it because you didn't like me the way you thought you would? When I thought all was lost, I did things with the expectation of being rejected, only to get cheated this time around. Did I finally escape it? No, I'm still haunted by the consequences of your actions. The thought of you being euphoric while doing it to me breaks me.

Just when I thought I was secure with you, things went in the opposite direction. A rejection would have been the better option. I am stuck and confused when neither side seems like the right answer. You were tired, and I wanted to stop guessing if only I knew what was on your mind. I hate mind games, you want to give up. Maybe everything would be easier if you did things without cheating on me.

In reality, when I see or hear from you both, my mind starts to wander off again. I hate mind games, maybe it would be easier if you stopped seeing him at the time. The idea behind it doesn't make sense. It's been months without seeing you, the mind games stop, but I find myself feeling depressed like never before. If I see or hear from you once again, I feel better, and the mind games begin once again.

All I want is to stop thinking about you, but that seems to be all I'm doing lately.

[uncommonlypastel]

2:32 AM - Jan 2, 2024

Well, my sadness has been burnin' for so many months now, time calls for cooling, wherever this leads.

Songs we shared in our twenties, youth's vibrant spree, will waltz through changes, it'll all come around.

Alone, perhaps, in this evolving time, As seasons shift, it'll all come around to you.

[uncommonlypastel]

2:40 PM - Dec 28, 2023

I gave myself excuses for the way you treated me because i thought it was supposed to hurt. I thought love was supposed to hurt. I took the red flags and saw it as signs for passion. The arguments we had as a form of communication. You distancing, as giving each other space. Every hurt came along as a sign of love. When I was in my deepest hurt and lowest, I thought I was being loved. I put myself through it all lately and I wondered, if love was pain, why did i want it in the first place? I was supposed to put my ambitions first.

And it all sinked in. All of it.

[uncommonlypastel]

[uncommonlypastel]

2:46 AM - Dec 26, 2023

christmas has passed

and i still love you

i accept you and adore you in your entirety

and would love you despite anything

[uncommonlypastel]

3:40 PM - Dec 24, 2023

"what do you do

when your problem

and your solution

is the same person"

-Leslie B

I'm torn between loving you and still wanting our relationship. On the flip side, I may deserve better or should I just let it hurt until I can move on. It's a tough spot, trying to recognize my feelings and also my own worth. Maybe if we had met differently at a different place and time, would we have stood a chance?