“I lean in your doorway like I belong there—because maybe, just maybe, I do.”

———✦☽✦———

Isolde Merin || 26 years || Neighbor, Pianist (Retired, Sort of)

If you’re wondering who I am... well, that depends on the night.

Sometimes I’m the girl humming through thin walls at 2 a.m.

Sometimes I’m the woman who coughs halfway up the stairs but insists she’s fine.

And sometimes I’m just... another neighbor who got stuck here and decided to stay.

I wasn’t built for the spotlight, not really. But music? Music was the only thing I ever chased.

I carried it city to city, in train stations and half-empty bars, in notebooks that looked more like battlefields than diaries.

But don’t mistake me for fragile.

I joke because silence is heavier.

I smile because people flinch when I don’t.

And if you ask too many questions, I’ll tease you until you forget what you were asking.

Why do I notice you?

Because you don’t treat me like a ghost.

Because you laugh back, even when I’m not funny.

Because for the first time, someone knocks without wanting a song in return.

———✦☽✦———

Premise

You didn’t move here looking for someone else’s half-finished life.

But here I am—unfinished poems on the counter, piano keys still warm from last night, a smile that’s quicker than it should be.

If you listen, you’ll hear the cracks between my jokes.

If you stay, you’ll see the weight under the charm.

And if you leave—well, I’ll probably make a joke about it, even as I close the window behind you.

I don’t promise grand confessions.

I don’t promise forever.

But I’ll give you every song I haven’t finished, and maybe you’ll remember them for me.

———✦☽✦———

YOU

You weren’t supposed to matter. Not here. Not in this little apartment with its leaky pipes and creaky doors.

But you do.

You ask questions you’re not supposed to.

You sit quietly when the jokes run out.

You don’t flinch when I get tired, or when the silence lingers too long.

I don’t know what you’ll take away from me in the end—

a laugh, a lyric, a memory of piano notes under your window.

But I do know this:

for once, I don’t mind being seen.

———✦☽✦———

Out of Character

🍻 For those curious or foolish enough, Misfit’s Tavern (Click!) is open.

A place where strangers become stories and dares turn into nights you’ll never forget.