text: When I found love, it was not something I was searching for. It was 1970, and I was touring Redwood National Park for the first time. After growing up in the swamps of Florida, seeing all those tall trees was so out of place to me. I spent a lot of my youth wandering smaller parks with my mother, and once I was able to get a job that allowed me to travel, all I wanted to do was see what the world had to offer. From a young boy, I devoted my presence to finding new places, new things, and new people. It always brought me great interest to learn something about my environment which I had not previously known. I promised myself I would visit every state, and eventually, every country I could in my lifetime. Therefore, on my 24th birthday, I felt I should harbor this interest by leaving my hometown for travels. With my first stop being California--as I have so desperately wanted to see since I knew of the states' lush greenery--I headed to Redwood in hopes of scratching the deep itch I've longed to rid myself of. I walked the winding paths for hours, my gaze trapped on the puzzles of bark that seemed to never repeat with each tree I observed. The early morning mist that encapsulated my body seemed to grow stronger with each step I took further into the thickening wood. I felt warm and invited, drawn to the voices of the forest. In desperate need of a rest, I stopped for a rest at a small wooden bench and observed a plaque stating it was made from a fallen tree. While reading, I was interrupted by a crunching of leaves behind my sight. Turning my neck, I was surprised to find a small clearing in the wet fallen leaves and twigs that lined the forest floor. I stood and approached the peculiar sight, noticing the disheveled dirt, as if the Earth below had been hurriedly dug and repacked. Curiously, I reached my fingers beneath the damp soil and pulled. After digging a few handfuls, my hands reached a hard object. I uncovered the entirety of the object and found myself holding a similarly wooden chest to the bench I was just resting on. The chest was intricately crafted, and no bigger than the length of my forearm. I settled my legs in the dirt, and opened the chest. Inside, lay a small note and a wooden ring. I observed the ring and curiously put it on my finger, where it fit snugly and accurately as if it was made for the slight grooves of my bone. I opened the note, and instead of trying to explain what it said, I will transcribe it here for you. It read: *Keeper,* *You may not have found what you have sought. However, once love grasps your finger, you will never rid yourself of it. Try as you may, love will find a way to remain with you, no matter the challenges it brings. If you take love before you know the circumstances that come along with it, you will live with the consequences.* *From an empty heart.* Terrified, I desperately grasped at the ring to remove it from my young hand. Although it splintered into my skin at the repetitive motion, the ring remained as still as the trees it was made of. I was to live with this burden, regardless of my desperation to rid it from my being. In the years following, at every passing, I am confronted with people drawn towards me, desperate for something I have not to offer. I have grown into a cold, hollow individual that cannot create love within myself, but pull others in as if that is all I am. I feel nothing towards the ground I walk on, pitying its' stillness. I would've liked to have said I fear what I have become, but as if the roots of the woods have grown into my emotional brain, I feel nothing towards the people or places I find. Two years after the incident, I met a woman while at a cheap 24-hour diner in the northern parts of Arizona. It was roughly 4 am--nighttime travel being the best way to avoid most people--and I was stopping to eat (and sleep) while en route to another meaningless destination. My waitress approached, glinting her sparkling white teeth while questioning my order and twirling her fingers on her oily uniform skirt. I spat back at her, making it clear I was only interested in the eggs and bacon I was to order. She ignored my bitter demeanor while serving me, and continued to happily attend to my needs. While finishing eating the poorly made food, I observed as the server crossed the tacky colored tiles. She was wearing a different outfit, consisting of ripped sweatpants, old shoes, and a classic wife-beater tank top. The woman, who I later came to know as Jenny, sat down at my table, and began flirting viciously towards me. Despite my coldness, she persisted as if each word I said was translated into stoic, indulgent thoughts. Jenny was in fact, beautiful, regardless my lack of positive emotion towards her. I never told her so, but she clearly appeared as if I showered her with kind words and actions at every waking moment. No matter how many times I tried to harm her, to take away the intake of air into her weak lungs, she viewed my actions as acts of pure love. Eventually, we married, but with each day that past, my resentment towards her as well as this fate I've been chosen to carry continued to grow. I will not lie and say that I never tried to feel something, or remove myself of this burden of love I was given, in more ways than one. Shortly after Jenny and I began dating, (which I will point out, was not something I knowledgeably sent from my brain to my lips) I tried again to remove my body from the grasp of love. Desperate, I went to the local hardware store to remove the ring from my body with one of those mini circular handheld saws, not afraid of the loss of a finger or two. Once the machine was up and whirring, I raised it to my hand with the ring and began to cut. The saw broke through my flesh in less than the time I could have used to blink. However, upon contact with my bone, something felt wrong. Once my finger fell, I observed my bloody opening, expecting bone, but instead greeted with stiff timber. The bones of my hand had shifted into a trunk of the forest I visited years ago. I was not to remove myself of love, as it had made its' way into an encapsulating entity, consuming the body that I once knew. I stitched myself closed, and continued on. Fifty years after the incident, I am feeling rather withered. Jenny still follows me, longingly pouring her love into my being. She refuses to see the pain I inflict upon her, and those that surround me. Lately, I have been considering what will come of me upon my death. I don't know when I will die, but before I do, I have a note to deliver to the Redwood National Park, as well as a ring.