Coming home on the NYC subway, the guy asleep on the seat across from me had the most compelling shoelaces…full of words, snippets of poetry from what I could see, definitely not simple logos. I wondered what they were. I love messages in unusual places, graffiti taken far.

I took pictures as best I could on the crowded, moving train. When I got home, I looked close to try to decode the words…

…flipping the image until I got the three repeating lines…

Do I love you?
Do I lust you?
Am I a sinner cuz I do the do the two?

Ahhh. They’re from A Tribe Called Quest’s 1990 cover, Bonita Applebum

That led me to the shoes the subway stranger was wearing: Vans special edition skateboarding sneaker. Beautiful.

I hunted around for other messaged shoelaces I could buy and didn’t find much. Laced up Laces sells a quote from 2 Corinthians 5:7 that I can get with, faith being a big open word in my mind…

Walk by faith, not by sight.

I’d like a whole poem printed on a shoelace…Laced Up Laces takes Custom Projects…

Hmmm. What would my shoelace texts be?