Consumer, by Marija Smits

Globally, breastfeeding has the potential to prevent about 800 000 deaths among children under five each year if all children 0–23 months were optimally breastfed.
World Health Organization 2013

The statistics speak for themselves,
but we’ve been silenced by niceness,
our thinking warped
by the global formula industry;
billion-dollared, bloated and all-consuming,
it is more black hole than business.

Let me remind you:
nothing escapes a black hole.
We all feel its pull.
But to think straight and speak out is resistance;
a teetering on the event horizon,
a survival, of sorts.

 

This poem was first published on the Zero2 Expo website: http://www.zero2expo.com/artists/marija-smits

 

Marija Smits is a mother-of-two, writer, artist and editor. You can find out more about her by reading her blog: marijasmits.wordpress.com or catching up with her on Twitter @MarijaSmits