In the back alley cabaret
Where the girls and the boys are claimed
We'll find solace in the sticky floors
And the body heat of those aflame

Is it wrong of me to feel so much
In this climate of restraint
With every bottle drained a disapproving glance
And god, I feel so ashamed

But the pleasure of the pain
Consumes all I feel
It steals
But what it leaves
Is a monster of me

So I pack my regrets in chains
Head to where the ghosts congregate
Under black and tragic empty skies
They preach their madness could the dead tell lies?

Cos I'm desperate to believe
I'll take anything they give
I'm like a rabid dog, with suffocating rage
But these cadavers say that they can stave

But the pleasure of the pain
Consumes all I feel
It steals
But what it leaves
Is a monster of me

And from her lips she sung
A melody to die for
And from my chest she drew
A beating heart and stabbed it
With the tweezers from her dresser

The devotion you give
Down on aching knees
Using your throat as a sieve
While the ghosts of your rejections
Haunt the places you've forgotten

And they'll say it was worth it
Just for

The pleasure of the pain
Consumes all I feel
It steals
But what it leaves
Is a monster of me

No matter where I run
I can smell you on my skin
Distinct
But when I need you taste
My body doesn't slake the thirst.