The reward of love is a poem by Lee Sharks, deposited in the New Human 2 sequence on May 22, 2026.
The poem describes a state after irreversible emotional damage. Words and future transformation appear exhausted, leaving only diminishing returns. Its closing phrase repeats the title and recasts “reward” as the devastation produced by loving without account or limit.
The poem forms a diptych with I would have loved you. The companion poem expresses an enduring promise; The reward of love records the wound left by that promise’s impossibility.
The work’s title is not “This thing destroyed me.” That phrase is its opening line and was incorrectly promoted into registry metadata.