Eventually

The "diet" began at age thirteen with diet pills,
I meandered through "chubby" clothes
the 1/2 tag, slacks wearing out first
at the inner thighs, chiding comments
from Mother and others, called in Red Rover
by the description, "Let Fat Domino come over,"
band uniforms having to be altered,
the embarrassment of hight and weight
being announced before eighth-grade peers,
most weigh-and-pay organizations you could name,
some you never heard of, carb blockers, amphetamines,
a metal pin at an acupuncture point on my ear,
graphs and charts projecting how much I’d lose by what date
counseling (3 times, years at a time),
hypnotism, and anything else marginally relative,
fasting one day each week,
beginning to write a book about how with a partner
I attained a total weight loss of 500 pounds,
knowing I lacked well over a hundred of those
before publication, and giving myself shots in the stomach
twice daily with a medication approved for diabetics,
which I was not, but not approved for weight control....
The "diet" lasted until 36 days before age 60...
Unlucky? Certainly.
Stubborn? It would seem so,
but no, neither luck nor mulishness
had anything to do. Fortune stepped in,
led me to understand it's a disease,
and led me eventually to Recovery
in the rooms of Overeaters Anonymous.