Exfoliation

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POETRY FOR INCLUSION

Facial distress and dead cells of despair

searching and seeking life’s once instantaneous glow

Epidermis longing for restoration

beneath clogged melancholic pores

A mental health cleanse for tense

anxiogenic skin that scurries away

from sodden mirrors of trauma

Serotoninergic dopaminergic

noradrenergic collagen boost

A proteinaceous rejuvenating

all inclusive antidote for

vulnerable quiescent exterior

Unsettling darkness is peeled

away by destigmatized light

Hydrated hope now flows freely

breathing sustained optimism

Dr Clark is an outpatient psychiatrist at Prisma Health-Upstate and clinical associate professor at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Greenville. He served on the American Psychiatric Association’s Task Force to Address Structural Racism Throughout Psychiatry, and he currently serves as the Diversity and Inclusion section editor and advisory board member for Psychiatric Times^TM.