Green Converse, 1993
Green Converse on a cracked bus step,
blue foam Woolco headphones
pinching like a cheap crown,
three foot cord pulled tight
to the Walkman on my hip.
Before the world learned
how to break in public,
before skylines burned
and boys rehearsed their rage.
Just a kid in ninety three,
MTV glow on the wall,
thinking the future was mixtapes
and neon,
not sirens
and anniversaries.
Clinton’s sax echoing
from the Arsenio stage,
back when late night TV
felt like common ground.
Before scandals turned living rooms
into courtrooms,
before parties carved the country
into colours
and wounds.
ninety three was cereal ads,
Saturday cartoons,
twenty cable channels
pretending to be choice.
We stood on the fault line,
but the crack
hadn’t spoken yet.
I walk over cracks —
no potholes yet,
just rubber poured into seams
as if sealing the street
could seal the century.
Freedom rang — Mandela stepping out,
a planet pretending unity
was a promise we could keep.
They taught us nations
wanted peace,
that cohabitation
was natural.
But even then I wondered
if the lesson was hope
or a lie
told gently
to children.
The Walkman hisses —
flip the tape,
never miss a beat.
Walking in syncopated lines,
never
following the leader.
Rewind.
Play it again.
Magnetic ribbon fluttering
like a wounded bird.
Green Converse gripping gravel,
the road home dusted
in late day gold.
Everyone lived off grid —
the grid just a rumour,
a gleam in the eyes
of data streamers,
phone-phreak prophets
dreaming in static.
Telephone wires buzzing
with connection —
hello … hello …
we can hear you now.
Static carrying voices
like ghosts.
Rotary phones worked
even in storms,
even when the lights died.
You could dial nine one one,
and someone human
answered.
But the script was changing —
what is the emergency?
Call someone who cares.
Corporate synergy.
The future
on hold.
Algonquin Blvd.
Hollinger Park.
Kids splashing in the pool,
the only danger
a ten foot metal robot
of climbing bars
and bravado.
Cages for children
still high on sugar,
gravity the only predator.
No junkies in sight,
no fentanyl fantasy —
just scraped knees,
wet sneakers,
and the sun deciding
who would fall next.
Converse kicking dust
on the swing set —
higher,
higher,
I soar,
launching
into the next generation.
Cathode ray dreams replaced
by liquid crystals
displaying our failures,
our faults,
the fictions we call truth.
Lies everywhere,
and we swallow them
because the truth
is too jagged
to chew.
We blew perfection apart —
for hang ups,
missed calls,
hacked rolls,
hacked charts,
hacked minds
scrolling to sleep.
Green Converse dance
in the algorithm’s shadow,
lighting the grid
with footsteps
out of time.
Everyone must be in pain,
seeking relief
in whatever blister pack
promises quiet.
Pride traded for pills,
faces hollowed
by something
that won’t let go.
The sun doesn’t shine
in shelters,
doesn’t reach
closed parks —
water shut off,
no flower sprinkle laughter.
The earth mirrors misery —
scorched ground,
diseased trees leaning
like tired elders,
birds dropping mid flight.
They tore down the overpass,
afraid of who might wander
below.
Foundations cracking,
roots dissolving.
I confront the algorithm —
it refracts,
distorts,
spits back the news
like a warning
I already knew.
My shoes keep marching
to the off kilter beat,
that rhyme in my spine
keeping me misaligned.
They follow the tread
of the dead —
those who lit the walkway
with Walkman ghosts,
bards from towns
that smell the same:
lumber and slumber,
entropy braided
with empathy.
I wanted to save it,
to step back
into the place I called home —
but the map shifted,
the streets unspooled,
and the doorway I remember
is gone.
I stop walking.
Take the green Converse
off my feet.
Throw them
onto the powerlines —
a signal flare
to the past,
a monument
to miles
I can’t return to.
Barefoot in the dust,
I rebuild a shelter
in place —
not from lumber
or laws,
but from the memory
of your house,
your voice,
your face —
the architecture
that never collapsed.
All I can salvage,
all I can save,
is my gelatinous heart —
that weeping muscle
built to endure.
The shoes will stay
on their perch,
swaying on the wires,
a signal to anyone
who walks this street
that I traveled
every pathway,
followed every vector,
and they all led
here.
To this place.
To this moment.
To the only love
I know —
the one that outlasted
the town,
the century,
and the shoes.
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