Compulsive

It's a comfortable refrain
ringing through an OA meeting,
compulsive overeater.
In recent years we've played
with the phrase, but just overeater,
changing it places to simply eater.
But we can say it so often
it loses it's punch.
Compulsive: relating to,
resulting from an irresistible urge. 

Especially one against our wishes.
Would that I would eat the way I decide
but my body rebels...oh, it complies a while
but not for long. I'm powerless.
It's an irresistible urge. I can't stop eating.
I'm a compulsive overeater, a sugar addict.
I cannot not eat sugar.
But I am. And I have. And I will
in days to come, one day at a time
when I remain in the will of a power
grater than I.

But I've proved it's compulsive
by my decades of failure,
by my frustration, by my slips and slides,
my passive yielding to those who don't understand.

I can't try just one bite, can't have it just once,
cannot be controlled by holidays or celebrations
or your sense of hospitality.
I eat compulsively. Except when I surrender
to a power greater than I.