This little O/S is a result of all the heart-donating/sharing talk on my Tumblr dash right now. Sorry for any mistakes, but it was hastily done. Also, it's a great opportunity to pay homage to E.E. Cummings.

Disclaimer – I do not own anything associated with Once Upon a Time, or the poem referenced here by E.E. Cummings, but I do own the words I created using them. Enjoy and leave me a love note if you'd like!

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)

He is under her skin, now, two breaths for her one, two souls staring out at the world, the echo of many lifetimes lived trapped beneath her skin. But then again, none of it is actually hers anymore.

She sees the world differently, now, full of colored starbursts, like buckets of paint thrown against a boring white canvas just waiting to be made something more. Everything sounds new to her ears - jagged tinkling of metal against metal, buoyant laughter, the persistent wash of the water against the docks. She is but a newborn experiencing life – living – for the first time. But then again, it's not really her living.

His thoughts are a jumbled, chaotic maelstrom, always thinking of her – always her – and if she had it in her own being, she'd pity him that he had no thoughts of more pleasant things.

i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

During the dark hours, when the rest of the world sleeps, she keeps her hands busy so as to quiet her mind, but it's difficult to shut out the hammering of the heart that beats so sadly. She cannot escape what she's done during those hours, each night, when the cacophony of voices dies, leaving only her own. And the heart – always the heart. It thrums in her ears, steady and lonely. She can feel his agony, his suffering, and if she wasn't sure of her own actions, she'd swear the utter desolation she feels is hers.

Sometimes, in the night, she's overcome with an urge to undo what she's done, to go running to him, take it all back, and let him comfort her. But that's not her. It never was, and never will be. So she blames these moments of weakness on him. On her love for him.

i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)

She wasn't lying to him that day on his ship, when she told him her walls were gone. It's true. She is now as unstructured as the desert sands. Free to roam where she pleases, where nothing can keep her, hold her up. There is no more her. She cannot mourn the loss of her imperfections, of what made her herself. She has wrapped up her destiny in the one man she never saw coming - never knew she always needed. And he no longer wants her. This is how it should be, she thinks. It is safer this way.

i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

Still, the idea of not having him by her side, walking through this new world together, brings a hitch to her breath, a strange and unwelcomed tightness in her chest that she no longer identifies as sorrow. She is numb to these things, but the ghosts of emotion still linger – almost like an unidentifiable itch she cannot locate. And when she gazes upon his perfect, anguished face, she still sees the beauty of his love. In his eyes, she was everything to him.

Before… this…they were everything to one another. Two charged particles that found each other in the void, collided, and held on with everything they were made of. She burned brighter with him. He encouraged her light. Bathed in it. She knew everything she ever needed to while she shone. Its absence is a cold existence, only made starker in comparison.

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

There is a part of her that knows things will never be as they were; that happiness in its previous form is impossible to replicate. It does not stop her from trying to force the one she loves into a new mold, one of her own design. If she cannot, then what is the meaning of it? Why have limitless power, only to be rendered powerless by love? These are the things that she tries not to think of when she sees the light gone from his eyes.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

In her deepest recesses, in the black chasm of ambivalence and humanity that mocks her new self every chance it gets, is the fickle flame of something she loathes – hope. She squelches it at every turn, as she once denied the power of the Dark One, but it remains stubborn and bright, though brief. It is in these mere flickers that she knows it was a perfect love. Flawed though they were, they were the completion of a soul's search for its missing pieces. They were each adrift, brought to shore by the other after lifetimes at sea.

She was cruel to him, she decides. The person she once was, who said the words to him first, the ones he'd waited so long for, let down the final barrier to his affections and then vanished in a cloud of gloom. She would never do that to him now. On the contrary, she knows exactly how to get to the heart of him. Knows which words to say, where to touch, where to put her body in his space. It will always be that way, no matter how he wishes it weren't.

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

All he has to do is come to her, acquiesce. She has more than enough power to share with him, and together, they could rule all of the worlds. She as the queen, he as her king. But it is this purity of love that keeps him from her. With this love between them, he is always out of her reach, no matter how far she spreads her dark tentacles. The very thing that used to bring joy to her existence is now keeping her from her own version of satisfaction. And this is her problem. Even as he has denied her, this love of theirs still lives, as if it has taken on its own life force. And it is bright – oh, how it shines. It blinds her. She squirms and flees from it. It is a constant mockery.

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

She relishes the newness of this life of hers. Those who loved her think it is cruel, but they don't know the half of what she's done. She has taken their memories for a very good reason. Sometimes she worries what they might do – what he would do – if they learned the truth, but she is kept in cold comfort by the voices in her head and the dark magic thrumming in her veins that say it will never come to light. All that matters, still matters. What needs protecting, has been.

She is never alone, save for the nights, and can have anything she wants – except him. She will never age, never wither, will always be the embodiment of an all-consuming force. She is clever and they are not. She will always win.

His destiny, in comparison, is a far worse lot. He will mourn the loss of her, each tick of the clock etched on that damn heart, until it kills him. Every week, every hour, every moment he wastes on her, his crusade, will bring him one step closer to mortality. It's already taking its toll on him; she feels the life leaving him with each passing day. That is his self-made mantle, however, and a part of her respects his resolve. But it is such a shame to see someone as beautifully remade as Killian Jones fade from this world. She has invested so much in him, protected him from others' magic, ensured her survival – and his. If she could care, she'd be enraged that he's wasting her gift on such fruitless endeavors.

So, in the night time, she sits, weaving dreamcatchers and simply listening to the steady thump, thump of that damn heart. It's fitting that should be her penance. After all, it's hers.