I apologized when I accidentally grazed her back with my shoulder
Because I was afraid of overstepping boundaries.
She apologized back at me as if to say,
“I’m sorry for existing and taking up space that doesn’t belong to me.”

In this vernacular,

In this society,

women learn to apologize

before they learn to walk,

before they go to school with boys whom have been taught that what they want is theirs for the taking.

The problem is that

women are taught to apologize

before they learn to ask for what they want,

before they are taught to take back what is rightfully theirs.