San Francisco is not Detroit (no offense to Detroit)

Photo by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash

San Francisco is not Detroit (no offense to Detroit).

-by Alen Nye

San Francisco is where you go to get sexy.
And be queer.
To get high
while getting by.
To get hip
living on tips.
To get paid
for getting laid.
And get lost
on the edge of the world.
Where you learn to love the delicacy of living on the edge
(a moist grey edge melting into the ocean as it comes into the Bay).
Where you just might break into the ocean and float away.
San Francisco is more beautiful than anywhere else, anyway.

San Francisco is where we all come, and come again,
to get cool.
Creative.
Connected.
Lovestruck.
Lucky.
To make and break fortune 500 companies.
To go from rags to riches
and back to rags again.
Get jaded
and cross-faded.
To become.

San Francisco is not a monocropped industry on a monocropped plain.
The sands of San Francisco shift beneath your feet.
San Francisco is a slanting sideways sunbeam burning through a world of fog.
She is a forked lightning rod broadcast from the peaks of her proud thrusting breasts.
She is a 7 ft thrift store drag queen dancing atop our smoke-choked dereliction of concrete shame.

San Francisco steals your breath away.
She mugs the heart right out of your chest.
San Francisco flaunts the hearts of stolen millions on her sleeve.
She is the end of the earth and where it all began.
San Francisco is not fucking Detroit.
(no offense to Detroit).

Alen Nye is a queer, non-binary business owner of English Language Institute and Plant Connection SF in downtown San Francisco. She and her wife live in SoMa.