Mark Lenover - My Perfect Tragedy

When I was young there'd come a travelling geek show
And from their crates the freaks would act out ancient tragedies
And, though I longed to let them go
Their cramped confinement meant the world to me
I'd marvel at their eloquence
At their poetic circumstance
I'd pay their man to watch them play
Out epic torments in a cage
And they all lived, just as they played
Beneath the savage flags they'd made

They played it out for me
My perfect tragedy
They wrote it down for me
My perfect tragedy

There is a town at the centre of the earth
And it bleeds up and down
Through great rivers in the ground
There is a town at the centre of the earth
And it bleeds up and down
Through great rivers in the ground

I'd cry out as they met their ends
And then I'd clap my bloody hands
I'd call for more, I'd pay their man
And then I'd watch it all again
Every time their blood would spill
And I'd collect the ones I'd killed
They played it out for me
My perfect tragedy
They wrote it down for me
My perfect tragedy

Then the show would travel on
And I would turn, strangely empty toward my father's house
Once my surrogates had gone
My nightmares would claw and clamour to release themselves
I held my head
I blocked them out
The ghosts I made still haunt me now
In my dreams, for what I owe
Oh, if only I had known
The wretched truth - each bloody scene
Their tortuous ends were meant for me

They played it out for me
My perfect tragedy
And now I die with them
Each and every single night
They played it out for me
My perfect tragedy
They wrote it down for me
My perfect tragedy