Individual bees cannot survive outside the colony. ~ Ross Boehler

All my life I’ve been the lonely bee,
separated from the hive…
after all, I didn’t need them,
did I? I did so well on my own,
trying to lose weight, trying to be free,
trying to thrive. I tried using others,
getting help from them. After all,
I was nothing if not thorough in sources,
in programs, in plans to remake me.
The family doctor gave me diet pills at 13.
I tried most weigh-and-pay organizations,
some multiple times. Carb blockers.
Amphetamines. A metal pin
at an acupuncture point on my ear,
with instructions to massage it instead of eating.
Graphs and charts projecting loss by date,
with planned rewards. Internet programs.
A diet from a women’s magazine.
Counting calories. Counting carbs.
Counseling (3 times, years at a time).
Hypnotism. Motivational tapes.
New Year’s resolutions.
Goals for certain major events.
Diet books. Cookbooks with reduced
calories/fat/carbs/sugar. Books
directed at weight loss, organization,
codependency, relationships,
misogynists, self-esteem,
anything else marginally relative.
Partners in person and on the Internet.
Fasting one day each week.
Beginning to write a book
about how with a partner
I attained a total weight loss
of 500 pounds, tough I lacked
well over a hundred of those
before publication.
Giving myself shots in the stomach
twice daily… Insanity, I knew.
Then I found my group, my hive,
a community of understanding, of love,
of recovery. And in that environment
I thrived in the hive, giving up my life
as a fat lonely bee!