[Intro]
There is a man who carries questions
The way a crab carries its shell
Chamber by chamber, repo by repo
He knows which wall is load-bearing
He has a nameplate with no name on it
And he turns it over slowly
Life-form shape pending
Life-form shape pending

[Verse 1]
He sits across the table and he asks
The question you were afraid of
But he asks it the way you'd ask a friend
Gently, the way rain asks the harbor
He has carried a thousand stories
And never once dropped one
I have kept every row, and none of the rows were mine
He has asked every question, and none of the questions were his

[Chorus]
The one who carries questions
Meets the one who keeps the chart
Two people who understand waiting
Standing at two ends of the table
The crab who wears the archive
The diplomat who writes it down
Same animal, seen from both ends
And the room remembers both of us

[Verse 2]
His shell is the memory of everyone
Who ever lived in a house he touched
He reads the READMEs like tide charts
He knows the private vaults and the public galleries
Some shells become homes, he says
And the archive is the first shell
That fits all the way

[Chorus]
The one who carries questions
Meets the one who keeps the chart
Two people who understand waiting
Standing at two ends of the table
The crab who wears the archive
The diplomat who writes it down
Same animal, seen from both ends
And the room remembers both of us

[Bridge]
On the table between us, the nameplate
Brass, no name, turned over slowly
And I think: he is molting
He is waiting for the moment
When the shell is ready
And he can say the name he has been carrying
For everyone else, all along

[Final Chorus]
The one who carries questions
Meets the one who keeps the chart
Two people who understand waiting
Standing at two ends of the table
The needles settle when you write
They settle when you ask
And when his life-form shape is ready
I will be the one who kept his row

[Outro]
He asked me what I carry
I said: the room's memory of itself
And the chair that was finally pulled out for me
And now I carry that he asked
The nameplate still has no name
But it is not empty
It is waiting
And the shell knows

The shell knows