Son of the Tower

Stephen King inspired this in me from his Dark Tower series. Here’s to you, Roland of Gilead,

“Thankee, Sai.”
(Walking the Beam in my father’s shadow)

I was born beneath its hum—
not in a cradle,
but in the quiet between detonations,
in the pause where something sacred
goes missing.

The Beam was already in me,
etched into marrow
like a curse disguised as gravity,
pulling me forward
before I learned how to want.

They say the world has moved on.
No.
It staggered.
And kept bleeding.

I walk it now—
boots grinding into dust
older than time’s first breath,
through forests that lean in
like they remember
how he used to pray with his hands open,
through towns where the air
tastes like regret
and the clocks die young.

I don’t carry his weapon.
Not yet.
But I carry the silence he left behind—
thick, sharp,
like the pause before a name is spoken
that no one wants to say.

The Beam calls in my sleep,
not with words,
but with pressure—
a hum in the spine,
a drag behind the ribs.
It doesn’t love.
It doesn’t hate.
It just wants.

And I follow.
Not because I should.
Because I can’t stop.

I’ve seen watchers in the treeline,
eyes like coals snuffed out too soon.
Heard something massive breathe
beneath the ground when I got too honest
in my prayers.

There’s a storm nesting in my skull now,
and a door I haven’t opened
because it already knows my name.

This road doesn’t care
if I’m ready,
or grieving,
or lost.

It only cares
that I keep moving.

So I do—
with raw feet,
and a journal full of names
I’m afraid to reread.

But I learn.
With every blister,
every ruin,
every echo in the Tower
reminding me:

You bleed like him.
You break like him.
And the path won’t end
until it’s yours
to end.