Being on Bourbon Street

Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street
Where our good and our bad selves compete.
We scheduled time to take off our masks,
And take a break from our responsible tasks.
With friends with whom we're well-fed and warm,
Who keep us from doing any permanent harm.

So nice to be there for the pageant,
Knowing that tomorrow we will all repent
Of any indiscretions that we committed,
And the temptations against which we were pitted.
Then back to work, with a smile we go,
Glowing with memories of the fantasy show.

I can't trust myself to be alone around
The people who see me as hero or clown.
When I fly too high, my friends talk me down;
They hold onto me till my feet touch the ground.
They stabilize my life like a tail on a kite,
Until I'm ready to come down from my flight.

Our network here doesn't create a fuss
When we are being our very most us.
Here is where he can be his most he
And I can be my very most me.
New Orleans is a place that accepts
That none of us were born to be rejects.

Here is home, and here we'll stay;
The pressure elsewhere gets in the way
Of us doing what we were meant to do.
The quiet was killing us, but who knew?
It feels so good to be back home,
Where we never again will feel alone.