[poem] [super draft-y]

In the moment when someone else's laughter tears
you away from joy
when their face turns mirror-mask, reflecting
back your past, when your breath
catches, and your heart stutter-
skips, the beat of time confused,
gone wrong, when you
startle awake to find you've gone adrift--

when you put down your anchor, set aside your anger,
settle once again into the fabric of your days--
when the details of your life burst blueberry-bright,
delight for all the landscape's swathed in mist--
when you notice you've forgotten to be scared--
this, too, has the taste of victory.

Hoard your small victories like sugar-cubes
or pearls, the coarse made sweet & light.
Remember that the everyday counts, too.
If it is all that you can do to wash your face--
even in this, you'll find you can find grace.

... aaaaah *small explosion of relief*

My Very Sad E-mail to the railcard folk got answered - quartzpebble let me forward the e-mail and assured me it wasn't a disaster, which is also some of how I deal with e-mails I don't wanna - very briefly, to the effect of "sorry about this, I see customer services have now sorted this."

... so I logged in on the website to check, and the status is now "dispatched". Which means it will be with me soon. Which means that I might have a card in the wrong damn name but I will at least have a card without having had to give them a name I didn't want to, and that's... a thing. *relief*

(However, I suspect this means that a different member of the team got assigned to verify my evidence-of-entitlement when I resubmitted and the structure's still fucked? WHATEVER I AM SORTED FOR THE NEXT THREE YEARS.)