ARTIST STATEMENT

This poem is about a fruit that does not fit in, and tries to draw comparisons with its contemporaries to find ‘a home’.

PRAISE

This is so dope! The idea of orange as the misfit color, whose name doesn’t even rhyme with anything, is awesome. This poem somehow reminds me of the Ugly Duckling story, where, in the end, it found out it was a swan all along. It delivers the same emotion and message of hope and patience, because with enough time and creativity, you can make orange fit into many a porridge of rhymes.

—Lyrical Lunacy

“The Humble Orange” responds to The Paint It prompt by Lyrical Lunacy.

content warning: identity crisis

The Humble Orange

Do oranges feel pain when squeezed for juice;
Do orange trees shiver their timbers when spruced
Oranges Alive! “I’ll beat you to a bloody pulp”
Oranges Dead! “No need, you can simply squeeze all my juice out.”

Oh you orange who doesn’t rhyme,
Demoted to detergent to scrub grime,
Oranges on sale, three or five for a dime
Taste of oranges — not easy like lemons — to silently mime.

Orange-yellow the color of stained wood grain,
Orange — the color symbolising healing from hurt and pain

Traffic cones striped orange and white — Nemo-like
Electronic bus signs plinking numbers like in a blackened lake, orange pike
Rutaceae’s family lifelong identity crisis — syke!
To identify more as colour — or fruit-like??

Named after the belly button — the navel orange
Named after the Chinese — mandarin orange
Named after haemoglobin — blood orange
Named after Aladdin’s villain — Jaffa orange

Oh rather to be known as a colour after all,
Splashy magnificent hues colouring the horizon with the sun
Squeezed from Captain Carrot,
And face-painted by Cabbage Patch kids

Who will grow up with trick or treating with Jack-o’-lantern
Come Halloween
Door-knocking as a veritable horde of tweens.

You are in the dark — eye of the tiger
You are the sweetest and purest of honey
You are the middle child — Amber
Born to the traffic light lollipop lady.

Harvest of sweet melons in slumber
Secreted juices in the cantaloupe
#FF8000 is your colour ID number
You, yes you, sweet child of hope.