Three Poems by Sam Harty

Sam Harty

Sam Harty is a poet living near New Orleans. Her work explores love, loss, survival, and the healing  power of truth. She is also the author of Lost Love Volume I and Volume II. Sam has been published in  several journals and anthologies and has just completed The Lost Little Series, a poetry collection about  reclaiming voice after sexual trauma. In her spare time, Sam volunteers at a Louisiana Trauma Nonprofit.  Sam Harty writes to breathe—and to help others do the same. 

Hotline 

It’s 4:12 a.m. 

when the phone buzzes against my pillow like a warning, 

like a pulse too fast to ignore. 

I'm instantly awake. 

She doesn’t say her name. 

Just: 

“Is this… is someone there?” 

And I say yes 

like a vow, 

like a promise I might not know yet how to keep. 

There’s a silence 

I’ve learned to wait through. 

Not empty— 

but full of everything 

she doesn’t want to remember 

and may never forget. 

I count her breaths. 

Match mine to hers. 

A kind of duet 

between panic and patience. 

I listen... 

"I was raped" 

She says it like a confession 

like a curse 

like she’s the one who did something wrong. 

I want to climb into the crack in her voice and pull her out of it. 

But all I have is 

my voice, 

my breath, 

my breathing on 

this line between us,  

humming with pain 

and still holding.

I repeat certain things-- 

so she knows I'm listening, 

so she hears; I believe you. 

because I remember 

how much it mattered. 

When the call ends 

I don’t cry. 

I drink water. 

Stare at the wall. 

Let her story settle next to the others— stacked like unsent letters 

I’ll never burn, 

and never forget.

Pain to Action 

If possibility is a gift 

then experience is a road how you walk upon it 

depends on how your life  unfolds. 

Anger 

Denial 

Blame 

Used to be all the same 

in my kaleidoscopic brain. 

Times spent wondering  

if I was going insane 

holding myself not as much

accountable but more to blame. 

Body autonomy was never

taught to me in school 

back in the day 

woman were taught to do

as their husbands said and obey. 

Nothing was really ever 

wrong with me but something

wrong happened anyway

to make me the Survivor

I am today. 

Understanding 

Acceptance 

Growth

Truth unfolds like a blanket

The realization that there was no true consent 

led to years in therapy, 

where hundreds of hours talking finally made a dent. 

Years have passed, 

time moves on  

I've stopped singing 

the blues - oh woe is me

and completely changed 

my tune and my vocabulary.

One doesn't overcome 

forgetting the trauma 

by burying it deep inside

only by realizing  

we're not victims but 

people who overcame by

walking tall with pride. 

Hope 

Pride 

Voice 

To share words with others

of encouragement, 

to persevere each day 

and never decide to quit.

More important than my pain 

is what I have done with it.

Lifeboat 

Back then I didn't realize 

I was dying inside 

my development being 

wrapped up in bed sheets 

and tossed out 

dingy and torn. 

I didn't see that 

the tombstone you were 

shoving into my center 

would stay with me, 

last a lifetime. 

I didn't know that this 

was not what little girls 

were supposed to do. 

But now 50 years later 

I know, 

I understand 

what you took from me, 

what I can never get back. 

I say I forgive you 

but I don't --not really. 

Years spent in therapy 

baring my soul, 

talking until I have 

no more words to utter. 

My therapist 

A lifeboat 

She listened and believed 

and I learned it was never

my fault. Casting off the

self blame 

awakened me 

helped me pause and 

smell the flowers 

showed me I still had 

a life I could live. 

Now as the hotline rings 

I answer with a breath 

reserved just for them 

a breath with intentions 

to help, to listen, to believe to pay it forward 

I am a lifeboat moored 

waiting to say 

“it isn't your fault.”