The choice

“Take your choice.

We’ll strip you,

no matter what you choose.

Are you to be dragged through nettles for a thousand miles,

or to be pressed into gorse for a thousand hours?

Alternatively, you can confess your sins, now.”

The pilgrim smiled,

scratched his beard,

and smiled.

“I confess that

I have sinned, uproariously,

I have basked in the glory of indecision,

I have procrastinated with aplomb.

I confess that,

in the face of pain,

in the armpit of shame,

in floods of indecency,

I have not made up my mind

about how to suffer.

Do with me as thou will’st.”