Reasons Why Orange is my Favorite Color

how to be as passive as orange:
which came first? The fruit or the orange?
“oh, I’m sorry. you can go first.”
bring books to the lunchroom
and hide in obscure color wheels
let bully neighbor red claim to be the opposite of blue
piss your pants in stores because you’re too afraid
to ask your dad to go to the bathroom.
cry, but softly. learn that a warm washcloth
will make your eyes less puffy.
make your pillows run away because they want
to be screamed into, someone who knows
how to speak above a whisper.
write all your fonts in size 11 calibri, all lowercase,
because old red’s gotta monopoly on that times new roman.

blue is looking for you
she’s spewing the advice her grandma told her
about how opposites attact.
she smells like her grandma’s old cats,
and she has a new quilt, too
along with a bit of a belly that wasn’t there before.
do you want her? red wants her more,
he’s the one outside her door,
leaning against mustang car doors,
schmoozing her mother with two bouquets of flowers
and giving her father the best goddamn handshake
he’s ever had in his life.
have you ever wanted anything
more than anyone, everyone else?
have you ever wanted anything?
can you even feel her?
she’s burning summer blues
and you’re the rotten fruit on the ground.
she could be the death of you–
aren’t you excited?

Author: Zoe Conner

I'm Zoe Conner. I'm writing on a computer named Rambo, which you should only say with a rolled r. I write because I don't want to be just another cog in the machine. I live. I write. That's all you need to know.

4 thoughts on “Reasons Why Orange is my Favorite Color”

  1. this sounds like every song i’ve cried to on my bathroom floor, it sounds like all the grocery lists i keep finding on sidewalks, it sounds like giving birth, it sounds like murder, conviction, kissing, spilling apple juice on your shirt in the grass outside my aunt’s house. it is random but it couldn’t be more specific. this is one of my favorite’s zoe. for real this time.

    1. I know this made no sense, this is just all the stuff I thought about when you wrote this piece. absolutely my favorite so far.

      1. “and giving her father the best goddamn handshake he’s ever had in his life.” unbeleiveable. I am jealous that you wrote this before I (millions of years from now) could’ve even began to think about writing something this eloquently-scratchy. (I’m not making sense. I’m trying. SO GOOD.)

  2. This is honestly so great. I am always amazed at your writing and it shakes me to the bone.

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