I Wonder if you Knew

It's funny the things one's mind chooses to remember.

Often I'll be emerged in a task and feel a faded memory of you scratching at my brain.
I'll feel our hands intwined as we walk through chilly woods after the monotony of a school day. Free from the taunting and those desks lined like rows of sharks' teeth. I remember how it was not easy for either of us until we divulged our strangeness into the darkness beneath the mangled oaks.  

It was within those trees that we awakened our submerged savagery and a kinship that went beyond what words had to offer. We were the children of the wild. The woods and its creatures were a sanctuary that belonged to only us, to use and to dismember, for we were lawless and free to act upon our cruelties and our curiosities. Together we hunted like the men of prehistoric times. Together our hands discovered the warm, ethereal thrill of flesh. The shared exploration of a beast's interior was not unlike the sharing of ourselves, and a magnification of our well-matched demons. The chilly autumn air was of stark contrast against the warmth of our deep red hands and your soft smile.

Where did the warmth of those days go? I behold their memory like a jewel among chunks of coal.

I searched for it in those woods, but I could not find it littered among the leaves, nor in the acrid dampness of the underbrush, nor in the sun-bleached carcasses we left behind us.

Still I wonder about you, when you skip across my thoughts without reason or warning.
Do your eyes still hold that gentle curiosity, or are they tainted with animosity like mine?
I wonder if you can still appreciate the dark solace of the woods. I wonder where you are.

I wonder if you knew you mattered to me.