Closer

It's a funny thing, change
It just shows up
Unannounced
Uninvited
Crashing the party
Or starting the party, maybe

Everywhere,
People are noticing the change in me
Like I woke up
One morning
As myself

I don't tell them
That it was a hard labour
Of many days struggling
Of trying to stop change
In its tracks

But it's doing now
And I am powerless to stop it
I don't know if I would
If I could

I feel strange
Closer to a whole person
Than I've felt in many years
Not foreign and fighting
The skin I find myself in

But it's delicate
So easily I could slip back
Into the ghost of a being
I've walked around as
Empty as an old beer bottle

Do you even recognize me?