Charlotte Brady has previously published two books of poems and a novel in Swedish. As Silence Is Your Witness is her first book in English and the first book in the upcoming trilogy, The Golden Passage. Her poetry explores the mystery of life and the search for freedom. After living in Sweden, New York, Jamaica, and Barbados, she has now settled in Miami where she lives with her family. Blending essential oils and making amazing fragrances is her favorite pastime.

I joyously resign from life, descending
to my own funeral in a scent of flowers.
I remember how glorious every breath has been.

I remember this body, this spectacular machine
of locomotion and love.

I remember this mind, this troublesome creator
of dream and delusion.

I look at myself while living:

I’m grounded in my flesh. I spell passion, love
with blood. I carve out letters, leaving scars of joy,
and gather thick orgasmic memories—
immediately discarded to leave room for more.

I’m grounded in my spirit. I spell passion, love
with invisible ink. I carve out letters and leave
impressions on several lives lived,
lost, imagined.

Souls kiss, bodies merge in the endless line of
sunsets here on Earth. I rise up in gratitude
for this magnitude and every latitude
where the world discovered me.

I am found and not forgotten, alive and never
dead.

I am not ashamed of my mortality
I am not ashamed of my eternity
I am not ashamed of being no one
I am not ashamed of being everyone
I am not ashamed of all that I was given
I am not ashamed of losing everything
I am not ashamed of being holy
I am not ashamed of being cursed
I am not ashamed of wanting comfort
I am not ashamed of wanting solitude
I am not ashamed of being wrong
I am not ashamed of being right
I am not ashamed of the light I carry
I am not ashamed of burning in myself
I am, I am, I am

The gaze of the hungry shoppers is faint
and cool as distant stars.
Like me, they now want pleasure.
Like them, I now want love.

As we dream of consuming our hearts,
our childish fantasies keep us bound
together in a tragic union.

I had too much of everything,
and wanted more.

I tried on so many things already.
Then this must be love,
I said after each failure.
Then this must be love,
not seeing that the weave itself was love.
That each thread, even if it broke, was love.
That every painful experience was love
showing me the way.

The weave, the thread, the weaver—
I didn’t notice they were one,
that all of it was love.

The money was sacred and worthless in my
hands. I collected my bags and returned
unwanted items.

Having a body in a shopping mall is glorious.
It’s priceless and not valueless, as I once thought.
I see myself in all the shoppers. We belong
together in this embroidered, false reality.

I watch us lovingly. Like legal tender we rise,
we fall, we are beyond it all and happiness is not
for sale.

There is no need for a place of worship, being
alive is enough. Being alive is not a place, a mall,
a church, a mosque; it’s a zero-dimensional point,
a coin turned inside out, a seed not yet existing.