Deep multicolored hues emanating from its surface in all directions
Voracious and cruel like a black hole, ripping the borders of lighter brown nearby
Seeding and spreading through the crimson water
Eventually arriving at the home of thought, pleasure, and personality
Shutting it down like an ember drowned by the morning rain
Pronounced dead shortly, his lifeless body calling my name

Despite his protective pigment
If only he had known
If only he was told
If only he wore the protective white paste
He could have been saved from the black hole

by Ajay Kailas, a third year medical student at University of Central Florida who is interested in dermatology, diversity, and skin of color. Skin and Him is about a dark-skinned person who dies from metastatic melanoma.