Orange light seers red love, 
don’t mess with orange 
she’s not afraid 
to sock ya in the kisser, 
to wipe that smile off your face, 
to smear that baby blue eye shadow. 
Orange flexes.  

Orange is the deep sea 
with men running amok on their trawler, 
their nets so full they’ll capsize. 
Orange is your baby’s drool, 
caught in a jar and sold to the highest bidder. 
Orange is a raging fire lit next to the house. 
While the boy cries it’s all so easy, you don’t matter, wtf,  
Orange gambles.  

The color orange drags you past comfortable, 
demands you rise above 
the monochrome, 
that preference to slide along the grease  
next to the railroad tracks, 
quietly disappearing as the train roars by. 
Orange is the large cone in its path, 
stopping engines dead in their tracks.  

The color orange  
picks you up, blows off the dust,  
spins you into a molten wind, 
stop being a big sucky baby, 
one boot in front of the other. 
You listen, move. 
Orange scares.  

Orange is not a friend or enemy. 
It’s a bad ass coach that seems friendly when practice is over, 
but who knows what it gets up to 
once it leaves the field, 
maybe a tumbling arsonists behind the bins, 
maybe a house with seventeen kids, 
maybe drag racing along the lakeshore til dawn, 
hanging out the window with a firey smoke. 
Orange gives the middle finger to whoever the fuck it wants. 

Wren Jones is a writer and outdoor enthusiast, often found/lost walking the ravines of Toronto. She’s currently studying at Simon Fraser University’s The Writers Studio. Her work has recently been shared in Untethered, Grand Little Things and Sky Island Journal.