“The first person I loved was a person with caramel hair and brown eyes, eyes not quite like the bark of a tree but eyes like coffee with creamer. I was taught to live my life with a man by my side, I was black and white when born and a man is color. A woman needs a man, but a man doesn’t need a woman. Growing I was taught to keep myself prettied up, you have to have your hair done but not too done, you had to have your makeup done but not too done. In magazines there are women who were size zero, their stomachs sucked in until they could barely breathe. I will be the night in shining armor and I will be the pretty princess needs rescued, I will rescue myself and if I don’t, then I’ll be damned. And I, I will build my castle out of stone from the ground up all by myself and I will tell the dragons and alligators no boys allowed. They shall breathe fire upon any boy to try and enter my castle, the very fire that burned so free in my eyes; they tried to lock my mind up in their room, shouting at me, “You need me! You cannot live without me!” I will burn this room down, right along with every other room in this house! After I do, I’ll stand upon these singed pieces of wood, and everything else in between. You have written countless metaphors about me being the sun and you being the moon, I needed you because I was so tired that I needed you to take over the night, but those are all idiocy, because instead of me being the sun and you being the moon. They’re beneath my skin and in my veins, I have more than the sun and the moon, but I have the stars, and the trees, and everything in between flowing through my veins. I will walk through the forest on my own without you by my side, I will climb the tallest mountain without you by my side, and I will build the tallest and largest castle without you by my side. So no, I will not apologize for being the night in shining armor and the pretty princess, no I will not apologize for my eyes being so full of fire it scared you, no I will not apologize for walking through the forest on my own without you, no I will not apologize for climbing the tallest mountain without you by my side, no I will not apologize for building the tallest and largest castle without you, and most importantly, no I will not apologize for not needing you by my side. I will not need you because I do not have enough room in my bed for anyone besides me and the large role, I do not have enough room in my head for anyone besides me and the large role I carry. My mother raised a wolf in my chest to howl for what I believe in, and what I should fight in, not over a boy or a girl to leave me. So I will not let it howl over you as I spiraled down because the first mistake and it surely isn’t the last mistake, was to love someone before I learned to love myself.”