Don't smile at me. Close your lips over your straw and drink from that milk carton like your life depended on sucking the very last drop off the soggy cardboard bottom. If you smile you'll lose the milk. And you'll lose me, or rather, I'll lose myself. And if both of us are lost there's no chance we'll find ourselves back in reality any time soon. I haven't seen reality in three weeks. I haven't been able to touch it for five.

Walking down the streets in Philadelphia you see some curious things. Technically I guess it's a matter of perception, but then again so is everything. I've been told that even the fullness or emptiness of a glass of milk is a matter of perception. You can touch the milk, and if you spill it you know the glass is empty for sure. At least there's a way out of that dilemma. I know I can't bottle you up and put you in a glass and spill you out on the sidewalk to make sure you're as completely empty as you say, so I guess it will always be a matter of perception. But with strangers your perception is all you have. Which makes your perception their reality. Which makes reality about as real as seeing your image in a pool of spilled milk on the sidewalk.

Today I saw you on your way to class and you certainly didn't smile at me. I suppose I should thank you for that. I would have appreciated just a little grin though. If you'd smiled at me with your eyes, or at least if you'd looked at me then I could have been mad at you. Now I'm just ignored.

I'm sitting on the floor in your room holding extra long batteries and a half gallon carton of convenience store vanilla ice cream. I give your roommate an amused glance and hand him the batteries, watching skeptically as they click into place in the bargain priced plastic blender and he flips the switch. Buzz. Done.

"About five seconds that time?" I say grinning. He simply looks at me and hands them back, sighing complacently and not responding to my teasing. "You know, I'd better put this ice cream away before it melts," I muse as I return the batteries to the charger with one hand and reach toward the freezer with the other. One pull of the handle and the door snaps open, spilling a great pile of single serving Lean Pockets, Turkey and Cheese, onto my lap. "Whoa, alright, I can see you guys need me to clean out your freezer for you. No, don't worry, this isn't hard to do," I say and wink at him. I rearrange the strange mixture of health food and substanceless junk on the tiny shelves while the batteries are stirring in the background. "Maybe we'd just better make chocolate milk out of this stuff. That blender's not doing a whole lot of shaking."

"Let me try it now, I think that's good enough."

"Ok…" With delibrate agonizing slow motion I place the batteries in his hand and wait expectantly for the triumphant shaking. Buzz. Buzz. Done. "Well, that was nearly seven," I say, not trying to be patronizing but rather enjoying it. "I think the key is patience you know."

You've been out somewhere doing homework on a Thursday night while the group of us have assailled your room, when I see you coming back down the hall. You're not smiling of course, so I can relax. Though my body is sprawled out over the carpet in front of your door, you look past me with questioning eyes toward our hallmates and step over me to tell them about math tests. You reclaim your bed from two strangers who if you asked I could tell you live downstairs, and promptly walk back out the door, expressionless. I wonder if I'm even really here.

That mixture sitting stagnant in the blender really ought to be stirred. I lean over and peer inside to see a frozen lump of ice cream rigid on the bottom, the tepid lowfat milk an inert soupy consistency on the top. They lie like a weary unused bath, and resist each other. It's as if the two bodies are fully emersed in one another but completely unwilling to swirl together like they should. Or at least they should in order to make a good milk shake, but it doesn't look like we're making any good milkshakes tonight.

"Hey, I saw that movie you were talking about today, it was good," I tell you the next time you come back.

"I don't care."

So I stop talking. I'm not stupid, only invisible.

BuzzDone. That was a quick one.

"Oh this is a great movie, I love the part when they're having sex and he sees her face the whole time," you tell the room, who doesn't respond. So you leave which is good because every minute you're ignoring me is another minute I'm concentrating on your lips and as long as they're closed I'm telling myself I can't stand you.

"Oh I know that part's funny," I offer you.

Buzz. Buzz.

"Yeah, whatever, shut up."

Done. I look at your roommate and smile. He hands me the batteries and smiles back. Sometimes patience doesn't really make a difference. The shakes aren't blended and we decide to just pour them anyway. We end up with lumps, but the lumps are ice cream so they taste just as good. I tell him it's alright because if we use the charger anymore it might combust or something. I can practically see smoke rising off of it now, but the smoke's not really there. That's just my perception kicking in.

And then you smile at me. You can be a real asshole sometimes. You smile and I take everything you just said to me, or didn't say, and pretend to myself that I don't care because I can see past your lips.

"I'm just kidding," you say, "Don't hate me." And you laugh like I'm supposed to join you. But I don't just yet. I'm trying precariously to hold on to my milkshake. It's easy for you; you don't even like milk.