Marija Smits

www.marijasmits.wordpress.com

Marija Smits is the pen name of Dr Teika Bellamy, a UK-based mother-of-two, ex-scientist and editor whose art and writing has appeared in many publications, including Mslexia, Brittle Star, The Green Parent, The Poetry Shed, Literary Mama and JUNO. When she’s not busy with her children or running the indie press, Mother’s Milk Books, she likes to draw, paint and, of course, write.

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BIOGRAPHY

Marija Smits is the pen name of Dr Teika Bellamy, a UK-based mother-of-two, ex-scientist and editor whose art and writing has appeared in many publications, including Mslexia, Brittle Star, The Green Parent, The Poetry Shed, Literary Mama and JUNO. When she’s not busy with her children or running the indie press, Mother’s Milk Books, she likes to draw, paint and, of course, write.

https://marijasmits.wordpress.com/

https://www.mothersmilkbooks.com/

Making Heartroom

Inspired by How Mothers Love by Naomi Stadlen

This mother’s womb grows day by day,

but so too does her heart.

She homes the house guest come to stay

within her womb, which grows each day;

and though her child will soon away

there’ll be no sorrow when they part.

This mother’s womb grows day by day,

but so too does her heart.

Consumer

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 Organisation 2013

Consumer

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.