We stay ready – we don’t need to get ready. We spring after winter, a breeze of / competition. Eyes prying youth open to look inside at our becoming, hips spreading womanhood / wide east & west.

don’t talk don’t even blink / don’t be sing or seem i mean / the typa that also makes you / contagious

oh, thank god he said, cone. my fists bloom / flat palms to spoon back into my pockets, / though the scorpion scratching my cochlea / continues like a skeptic testing theories.

Victor J. Blue is a New York based photojournalist whose work is most often concerned with the legacy of armed conflict, human rights and the protection of civilian populations, and unequal outcomes resulting from policy and politics.