You have not loved;

you have not known the way your heart expands beyond the ribcage to fill every fibre of your body, the way the world stops at the slightest touch. You have not understood the emptiness, the unwholeness when you are not held, the arms that ache. You have not understood the desire to simply sit and be with, to rest, to feel at home tucked into the embrace of another; to breathe together; to hear nothing but breath and heartbeat. The way your soul simmers into white tranquility. You have not understood the way the universe revolves around your hand in hers as you both observe, learn fragility. Incomprehensible beauty. You do not see the glory that has been built into this world, the mystery that puts a filter over your eyes that you cannot see anything for what it is, she becomes your world, and because of her the world is beautiful, all the curiosities of the human condition encapsulated in your first kiss.

You have not let all your treasures and insecurities fall to the floor in a careless heap, you have not put everything you live for into cupped hands as an offering, all that you once worshipped now worthless in the light of greater beauty. You have not allowed your monsters out of the deepest darkest place, you remain afraid. You remain sealed, a Ziploc full of air, self-sufficient. Never a leak. A leak is dangerous.

You have never let yourself be abandoned to danger. The moment you realise what you have given away it will be too late. You have not let go. One day you will. One day a girl will capture you in the most curious ways, you will wonder what has come upon you, why your thoughts won't leave you alone; you will get frustrated. You will agonise. And you will give yourself away. And later when she walks away and tears off a bit of your soul you will be left with a permanent hole. And you will struggle for duct tape but you will leak. And then you will be left naked and afraid.

It is important. We are human; we all have our patched-up tears; it is the condition of love. One day you will know, and you will curse yourself for your childish stupidity, you will not understand how the majestic parthenon - a temple of love - can so easily crumble. And we will all lie upon our ruins. One day then, perhaps, you will also find it in yourself to pick up the bricks again. Pristine, we are only young. We all have to break. Grow. Build ourselves from ruins.