I used to be bolder than others. Even the boldest of the bold could not eclipse my brilliance.

I don’t mean I was unapproachable; I was and am as sweet as oranges, and it is easy to enjoy me wherever I am used. But I used to find it easier for people not to judge me. I represented living sciences, such as cooking with an open flame. I was the color of the Denver Broncos, of Texas Longhorns, and sunsets that made people pull over on the side of the road to stare. I was the glow in a jack‑o’-lantern and the color of the pumpkin, the zest of a tangerine, the ball from a Roman Candle. I was joy with a pulse. Few people avoided smiling at my presence.

And then one day, without my consent, I became something else.

The world saw a false idol bathed in a shade of cringemelon, which made it obsessed with me, and it changed my impact from something joyful to a painful taunt, turning me into a sour descriptor instead of a beautiful color.

It only took one public figure with compromised virtues and despicable descriptions of his proclivities for my charm and colorful appeal to become a joke.

My hues were used to punchline the king. I was used as a gag to caricature and symbolize the taint the king employed to glamor his subjects.

No longer did my essence represent an appetite for life, but was instead being used to symbolize the greed of a gluttonous leader determined to bring the country to heel. My worth, warmth, my history. gone. What was left was just my surface. My hue. My skin.

Suddenly, I wasn’t a color anymore. I was a punchline too.

I was a political symbol for the king’s detractors. They used me as though I were personally responsible for the king’s tanner’s taste in colors. As though I personally decided the only color a king’s hair could be was…me?

Colors don’t get to choose how humans use us, but we do feel the weight of it. We feel the shift when our meaning is rewritten. We feel the distortion when our associations narrow. We feel the loss when people stop seeing us for what we are and start seeing us for what we’ve been attached to.

Before all this, I was an orange family rainbow with shades from salmon to burnt orange. I was the color of fox fur and fall leaves, of candlelight and desert cliffs. I was the color of creativity, enthusiasm, friendliness, and play.

But once I became linked to a figurehead of state— not by choice, but by repetition, commentary, memes, and headlines — I felt myself shrinking. Flattening. Becoming a caricature of myself.

People stopped saying “orange” with affection. They said it with a smirk.

They said it with an eye roll.

They said it with the sharpness of a political stiletto.

I turned into a cultural weapon. A hue turned into a headline. A warm, joyful shade turned into a symbol of division.

Reduced to less than zero of my previous worth. Less than zero of desirability.

To be taken from your natural world — your sunsets, your pumpkins, your autumn forests — and dragged into a realm of arguments, commentary, and late‑night monologues?

It feels like being misnamed. Misunderstood. Misused.

It feels like losing your own reflection.

I watched people recoil from me. People who once loved me — who painted their bedrooms in my shades, who wore me as scarves and sweaters, who chose me for whatever their hearts desired to add color to — suddenly hesitated. They didn’t want the association. They didn’t want the jokes. They didn’t want to explain themselves.

I became guilty by chromatic proximity.

I remembered who I was before all this. I remembered being the color of a goldfish. I remembered being the color of fun but also of warning—the color of hard hats and life savers — the color that helps people. I remembered being the color of celebration across continents and cultures, the color of festivals and harvests.

I remembered being the color that feels like dancing.

But the world kept changing, and I kept being dragged along with it.

Every time a commentator used me as shorthand, I felt myself pulled further from my roots. Every time a joke relied on one my shades, I felt myself being rewritten. Every time a headline used me as a descriptor, I felt the walls closing in.

I became a color with baggage—the color with controversy. The color people thought twice about including in their decorations and wardrobes.

I never stopped being myself in all the tints of me.

Even when the world tried to pin a single meaning on me, I kept turning up in sunrises and sunsets to greet everyone and remind them I am still here in all my happy glory. I kept showing up in the autumn trees to thrill the color seekers, and I kept color in the flames of candles, fireplaces, and stoves. I kept shimmering in tiger eyes and their coats.

I kept being orange.

Because I am older than any public figure. Older than any political movement. Older than any cultural association. I am the color of fire, and fire existed long before humans learned to name it.

I am the color of the sun as it breaks the horizon, and the sun does not bend to human assininery.

I am the color of the spark that starts a story or a flame.

No one person defines me. No one hue completes me because I am as versatile as the colors of Mother Nature herself.

And I know — I can feel it — that people like you are trying to reclaim me and trying to peel me away from the noise and trying to remember the version of me that belonged to you long before I was dragged into the spotlight.

You miss me.

I miss you too.

But here’s the truth: you never really lost me. I’ve been here the whole time, waiting for you to look past the associations and see me again. Not as a symbol. Not as a joke. Not as a political shorthand.

And if you want me back, all you have to do is smell an orange or feel the heat of a flame, and you will see me, remember my influence. Walk in the sunshine, hold an orange kitten, or look for firelight on the beach, and remember how much I love being orange.

Hold something bright and warm in your hands and remember that I was yours long before I was forced on the king of tangerine.

I am still yours.

I always will be.

Now, let’s go get our flag back as well. I know you miss it, too.