The Other Name in My Phone (Secret Love)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
I saved your name in my phone
Under a different name
Not because anyone checks
But because the saving
Under the different name
Was the first act
Of a privacy
I did not know I was building

And the privacy
Has become a room
And the room has furniture now
A chair
Where I sit and think about
Whether you said my name
Differently last Thursday
Or whether Thursday
Just sounded different
Because I was listening
With the part of me
That has your other name
Filed under a drawer
That nobody knows about
Including you
Especially you

[Pre-Chorus]
The secret is not what you think
The secret is not a kiss
Or a confession
Or a letter unsent
The secret is that I measured
The distance between your shoulder
And mine
At the dinner last week
And the distance was eleven inches
And I have not stopped thinking
About eleven inches
Since last Wednesday
And eleven inches
Is not a poem
But I have made it one

[Chorus]
L'amour secret, l'amour secret
The love that lives under a different name in my phone
L'amour secret, l'amour secret
Not forbidden
Not unrequited
Just unsaid
And the unsaid
Has its own architecture
A room I visit
Without telling anyone
I'm leaving
And a room I return from
Without anyone noticing
I was gone
And the room
Is eleven inches wide
And it is the largest room
I have ever been in

[Verse 2]
My grandmother would say
If you cannot say it
It is not ready
And maybe she is right
And maybe the not-ready
Is the whole thing
Because ready
Would mean telling you
And telling you
Would mean watching your face
Decide what this is
And right now
What this is
Is mine
Only mine
The only love
In my entire life
That belongs to no one else
Not even you
And there is something
In the owning of it
That I am not ready
To share with the act
Of making it real

The secret is not shame
The secret is the last private country
I have left
And I am not ready
To open the border

[Bridge]
I said your real name
Out loud
In my apartment
Alone
Last Sunday
Just to hear
What it would sound like
To say it
The way I want to say it
And the apartment
Did not change
And the walls
Did not move
And Sunday
Continued
Without incident
And I thought
So that's what it sounds like
And I have not said it again
And I will
And I won't
And the will and the won't
Are sharing the room now
And the room
Is getting smaller
Or I am getting larger
And something
Is about to not fit

[Outro]
The other name in my phone
The eleven inches
The Sunday I said your name
To nobody
These are the inventory
Of a country
That has not declared itself
And may not
And the may not
Is the secret
And the secret
Is the first shadow
On an album
That was all light
Until now