It Was Supposed to Be a Good Day: A Spoken Word Poem by Sidonie Brown

Today was supposed to be a good day

Until I turned on the news

I check my phone

Mass media is singing our blues

Do I look away or sit and stare?

Waiting for the next black life to be taken senselessly

While a crowd watches the terror

frozen on a victims face

As their last breath slips away

I think it’s becoming a trend

for the last thing a black person sees before eternity

Is a cell phone, asphalt, or a gun in their face

Famous last words:

I have a daughter

Please stop

I can’t breathe

I’m reaching for my-

The screaming stops

The last thing we heard was gunshots

And now a family mourns

because a wave brush looked like a .44?

So now we say their names

But everyday there is a new one to say

Going numb thinking of who that could be

That is black or brown just like me

What happens when they share my DNA

What if we share a family name

Shaking thinking of the day that I’m not saying the name

Because mine is the one ringing in your ears

I refuse to be a martyr

While your thumb slides across the screen

You can afford to not see color

But my pigment was labelled as unimportant

I don’t have the necessity of ignoring these blatant atrocities

Spoiler alert: the murderer doesn’t get charged

Don’t tell me what should have been done

As we bled out in the street

If the only race is human

Why are we the humans that no one hears

Teach us your language so that they hear us too

We’re trying to adapt without assimilating

Doing our best to cooperate

It doesn’t matter what we do

It will always be too late

Cause your ignorance is the issue

He was walking home alone

She was pulled over for speeding

His daughter was in the backseat

She was in her home, asleep

He was playing in the park, he was only twelve years old

It was supposed to be a nice day

It was sunny enough to see heaven

through the clouds.

If i leave home I’ll have to speak out

Because I don’t want to die just for living

But i am living with the fear of death

I think it’s safer to stay inside today

Maybe try again tomorrow

– It was supposed to be a good day by Sidonie Brown.

Originally performed on Thursday, September 3, at the Black Lives Matter Vigil at Delaney Plaza.