Compulsive

From the diet pills prescribed for
a thirteen-year-old me
through plus sizes, high school and college
band uniforms requiring alteration,
the fabric between my legs
wearing out first, clothes bought
in special stores, dieting
for forty-eight years, gaining
more than I lost, trying everything
to end the compulsion to eat.
But stopping was beyond my grasp.
Doctors, counselors, pills,
hypnosis, metal pins in ears,
fasting…failing, hopeless,
desperate. A counselor understood
from her twenty years sober
in Alcoholics Anonymmous
that Overeaters Anonymous
could end the compulsion,
and finally, almost sixty,
I found the compulsion
could put a stop to hopeless
and begin to nurture hope.