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I Will Survive
by Aoife Mannix

"As long as I know how to love",
course it's tacky,
heartbreak is a tacky, messy business.
And if you never sat
on the edge of a sink,
in a ladies loo,
in some dodgy night club,
bawling your eyes out,
while your best mates,
and total strangers,
put their arm round you saying,
"he's a bastard, don't be worrying about it love",
then you haven't lived.

And real friends are the ones
who are still there at four in the morning,
holding your hair out of your eyes,
as you crouch over the toilet bowl,
puking your guts up,
in between long, complicated tales,
of Michael or Sean or David,
or whatever his name is,
whose the reason you haven't bothered
to ring them for the past three months.

And they listen to you
with the patience of all the saints put together,
until this song comes on,
when they haul you on to the dance floor,
pouring still more vodka and red bull down your throat.
And no matter how sophisticated you think you are,
you will discover you know all the words,
and that maybe you won't slit your wrists over him after all,
because as long as there are glitter balls,
and pumping music,
and friends to put you comatose into the taxi home,
you'll be all right.

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