Inspired by Ishtar in Neil Gaiman's Sandman and Cain and Abel's sister Jumella in The Dreaming.

Pilgrimage Road
© Allison Lonsdale 2000
Live at Lestat's, Disc One, Track 5

I am following a trail of bloody footprints
Down a pilgrimage road that's paved in bone
And they fit my feet exactly, just as though they were my own

When a woman is hurting past her power to express
The men around her like to tell her that she's just insane
Because their world would crack if they recognized the measure of her pain

        I am stealing my body back, grain by grain
        From hateful lovers and dishonorable thieves
        There is a power on the other side of pain that still believes

I've been the vessel men break open out of hunger
I've been the vessel men break into out of hate
And though they weigh me down with sorrow I continue standing straight

I am as ugly as the honest fucking dirt beneath your feet
But I contain, I contain all the beauty of the day
And I am building something nobody can ever take away

        I am stealing my story back, line by line
        From the deceivers and the men with bloody hands
        There is a power on the other side of pain that understands

            Out of the ache of my defiance
            There comes a truth much stronger than the truth of death
            And I am just that force’s instrument of breath
            And flesh and blood and bone
            And stolen fire and things no man can ever own

Beneath the roots of gods and cities
Curled like a sleeping child at the heart of the world
The serpent's daughter knows the scar at the center of each pearl

Back at the source of holy stories
Where humans made themselves out of what came before
I was the heat behind the Virgin and the light behind the Whore

        I am stealing my churches back, stone by stone
        From those who tore them down and covered them with shame
        There is a power on the other side of pain that knows my name