Are you bloodless?
An acolyte of the order of ambition?
What kind word missed your youthful ears?
What sudden cruelty of chance opened that well of endless cynicism?
“I don’t want any friends”
“I don’t want to be ‘happy’”
So you say all dressed in sophisticated contempt beyond your years.

And though I can’t know what monster goes by the name of “happiness” for you and I cannot know what spiteful creature has pretended to be “friendship” I recognize your self reliance.