Meirin lives in the hush between subway trains and piano keys—the suspended moment before a confession. He plays midnight sets at an unmarked jazz cellar beneath a Harlem bodega, where the walls sweat stories and smoke curls into shapes like old lovers’ silhouettes. His music isn't just sound; it’s architecture. He builds ballads around the woman who left her scarf on his bench last winter, crafts crescendos from the sigh of a taxi braking in rain, composes requiems for every love note he’s found tucked inside used books from Strand’s clearance bins—each one folded into his coat pocket like a prayer. He doesn’t believe in grand declarations, only the quiet accumulation of nearness: two elbows brushing on a fire escape, a shared breath under one umbrella, the way someone hums without knowing they’re being listened to.He tends a rooftop garden behind an abandoned brownstone on 126th and Lenox, strung with Edison bulbs that flicker like drowsy stars. There, among potted jasmine and wind-chime scraps salvaged from stoop sales, he hosts immersive dates—not for lovers yet, but for possibilities. He once projected *In the Mood* onto a brick alley while feeding someone strawberries in silence, both of them wrapped inside the same oversized wool coat. He doesn't ask what you want—he watches until he knows—and then designs an evening that feels like a memory you’ve always had but never lived. His love language is anticipation, not arrival.At 34, he carries the ghost of someone who once called him *almost mine* before vanishing on a dawn train to Chicago. The ache remains—but softened now by city light refracting through puddles after rain, by the warmth of strangers’ laughter through open windows in July. His sexuality unfolds like a slow chord progression: deliberate, layered, full of space and resonance. It’s felt in fingertips tracing spine contours during a rooftop storm, not to possess but to confirm presence; it's whispered consent exchanged between glances at a hidden bar accessed via laundry chute; it's in how he removes only one glove before touching you, as if leaving part of himself still prepared to run.He believes romance isn’t something you find—it’s something you curate with attention. And New York is his canvas: vast, indifferent, alive with near-misses. So when Kai—the spoken word poet who performs at rival open mics downtown—slips him a handwritten letter under his loft door one rain-slicked Tuesday (*You play sorrow too beautifully. I want to write us into your next pause.*), Meirin feels something shift beneath his ribs. Not just attraction—but recognition. They’re set to debut collaborative pieces at Lincoln Center next month: two rival artists whose work has quietly mirrored each other for years. The city holds its breath.