In tenth grade, a boy said,  
“Washington, D.C. is in Virginia.”  
I corrected him—  
said it was neither and both,  
its own district.  
The teacher Googled it,  
read the truth out loud,  
then turned to me and said,  
“Apologize for disrupting the class.”  

So I did.  

And I have been saying sorry ever since.  

Sorry for knowing too much.  
For being too passionate,  
too emotional, too empathetic.  
Too much when I demand respect,  
too much when I react  
the way others do to me—  
but when I do it, it's wrong.  

I have learned that women must shrink  
to be acceptable.  
To be small enough to be tolerated.  
To swallow knowledge  
so it does not spill out  
and threaten fragile egos.  
To let silence replace truth  
because truth makes them uneasy.  

We are taught to apologize young.  
Sorry for our hair in the drain,  
for needing tampons and pads,  
for the price of our own biology.  
Sorry for bleeding,  
for growing,  
for existing in spaces  
where men believe we should not be.  

By puberty, we know—  
our bodies are currency,  
our voices are burdens,  
our presence requires permission.  

But not me. Not anymore.  

I have stood my ground—  
faced cruelty when it came for those I loved,  
thrown words like knives because no one else would protect them.  

I have refused to step aside—  
to move for those who walk as if they own the world.  

If you do not see me, you will feel me.  

I will not apologize for choosing my family over expectations.  
For shutting out the noise of a world that demands too much.  
For putting my healing first—  
even when it makes others uncomfortable.  

I will not apologize for being a woman.  

I will not apologize for the space I take up,  
for the voice I refuse to quiet,  
for the boundaries I dare to keep.  

I am done paying the apology tax—  
a tax I never owed in the first place.  

And now? I am collecting every debt:  
every moment of silence stolen from me,  
every inch of space I was told to surrender,  
every truth I swallowed so someone else could feel whole.

I am done saying sorry for being whole myself.

Let them learn to carry their discomfort—because I won’t carry it for them anymore