She'll flinch at your hands moving from her waist to her lower back, back up to her neck and cheeks because it's been some time since she's been caressed by hands that are wandering to remember old terrain.

Try to decipher the goosebumps on her arms and thighs like Braille with your fingertips. What do you read? "I missed you"? "Don't go again"? "Stay"?

Maybe she won't meet your gaze immediately. It's oddly scary to look someone in the eye when you've seen them go dull from too much heartache. Instead, close your eyes and lean in. She'll close hers too, and you can feel the sadness melt away when your lips are almost close enough to hers.

She'll gasp ever so slightly when you finally kiss her. It'll feel like electricity in your lips and she'll be dizzy from anticipating this moment for so long. Her lips have lingered on coffee mugs and beer bottles, but haven't been warmed by another pair since you left. Reignite them with your own.

Hold her close and kiss what you can. She's timid but so lifted by the fact that you're here in her embrace. If she holds you too tightly, allow her this once. She's trying to make sure this isn't another one of her far fetched dreams that wake her in the morning.

She may be rough and kiss too hard, too fast. It won't always be like this, but she isn't sure if she'll be afforded the opportunity to feel your kiss again. She's feeding a hunger that's been growing since you said good bye.

If she clings to your frame when you say good night, whisper softly into her ear about how you'll be back. Come back, and kiss her again. Kiss her until you forget what day it is and how long it had been since you last kissed her. Kiss her good night but not good bye because there's a difference between the two and trust me, she knows. She knows the difference because you've kissed good bye before, and a good night would simply constitute to finding you once again.

I wrote this for you because there were times I wish someone had written this for me-

Stop hating your reflection, stop hating the girl that is in your mirror. She is you, and you must love your fingertips to your eyelashes, your toes to your stomach all the way down to the edges of your soul and the depths of your heart.

Stop letting him be your world. Have you ever looked at a map? Have you even seen where the rivers go? Have you ever realized that you can get in the car and go? Don't tell me no, because it's true. Instead of following the rivers you let him create them and they flow down your face. Stop swimming in your tears, don't drown in his consuming love. Swim far away and resurface. Breathe in and out. Get out of the water and dry your tear soaked face off, and don't swim until you're ready again.

Stop letting your insecurities shape your mind. They're like needles injected into your body, leaving injuries and drops of blood while extracting your strength to put those thoughts to sleep. You have to learn to form your pretty little fingers into fists and start fighting off those nagging voices in your head that say you aren't good enough. Throw a punch, take a hit, get back up, wipe the sweat off your forehead and do it again. Battle until you come out bruised but on top, exhausted but a winner.

Stop letting him be your measure of worth. His attention and love will never, in your lifetime, fill the void where your own self love should be. He, nor any one guy, will ever fill your heart the way your own self love could. I promise you that loving yourself is so much more rewarding than someone else loving you. I promise I promise I promise.

Stop making excuses. Are you really happy or is that what you project? Is your smile real? Does he make you genuinely smile anymore? Are you falling asleep in his arms feeling alone? Are you?

Stop reading these words and start doing. I wrote this for you because I know he never would.

Your look as the door closed between us,

Haunts me.

Don't build a home in the rib cage of others is what my mother told me when I found myself wishing my bed was "ours" and home was more so his arms.

Don't nest in the heart of anyone for hearts are fickle, fate is unpredictable and alas, people always change.

Don't place all of your eggs in the basket of your lover- when they hatch and attach, they may be so comfortable that you never leave and never learn to fly.

My mother begged me to not lose myself in swimming his veins, the web of his mind and the sheets when the bed was ours. Some days I wish I would've listened, but finding a home in the heart of someone else taught me this-

Hearts are as fragile as the nests you build in them.

Your wings flapped too hard and created hurricanes when you lost control, and chipped away at your rib cage nest.

You picked and probed with your beak to no end, and left holes and tears in your heart home.

It's not fair that your own heart was so full to the brim with demons and doubts that you unloaded them like your belongings when you first moved in, left scattered around, left out for the mess you were.

Your fragile heart left marks upon your home and the foundations flew away like you should have when your rib cage nest and your heart home grew too small and let you fall. It took falling to learn how to fly but by then it's a little too late.

Do not make a home in the hearts of others, my mother told me.

Someday you'll have to fly away without your heart because the weight of it is too heavy from a lesson your mother tried to teach you, a lesson he taught you and a lesson you've come to preach-

Do not leave your heart in the rib cage nest of another, for it'll nest so deeply that it cannot be reached.