I have found it,
the price I was seeking
that elusive side-effect
to my false joy.

I always knew
of its existence.
The ability to detach
behavior from emotion
could not be one cheaply bought.

But I was mistaken
in my long and fruitless search
through the channels of sentiment
to find a blockage in the pipe
pressure building.

The cost of my functionality
is not an explosion
but a memory
of the time when joy was real
no schism through my psyche
to trap it in the beyond.

A memory
forever lost
to a death
and my folly.