“TODAY I DIED”

Please stop and take a moment to read this poem that was shared with us from Angela, one of our Matthew’s Hope supporters. She said, “Scott, I read this poem and thought of the work you all do at Matthew’s Hope…I hope you hear it often of how important your work is in our community”. Thank you, Angela, our team needed this!

"Worth a Moment of Your Time"

by Kelly Balarie

I was homeless and mentally ill for most of my life. Whatever the doctors once called it, I only knew it as chaos —

the kind that hijacks your mind and convinces you the lies are real.

In my head, I worked for the CIA.

The DEA.

The Foreign Legion.

I was a man on secret missions, with invisible badges and unspoken orders.

Why?

Maybe my brain built those worlds to protect me from the one I actually lived in.

Or maybe they were echoes of the boy I used to be —

a boy who once dreamed of serving, of mattering, of being someone.

I’ll never know now.

Between jail cells — mostly for trespassing,

for sleeping where no one wanted me —

and short stays in mental hospitals,

I found one place where people knew my name:

a drop-in center for the homeless.

I’d show up hungry, dirty, and tired.

They gave me food.

A shower.

Clean clothes.

And something even harder to find — kindness.

When they asked where I’d been,

I told them stories.

“I was away with the Foreign Legion.”

“I just got back from a mission with the DEA.”

Once, I even said I was going to report them

because their water was poisoning people.

To me, those stories were true.

They knew they weren’t —

but they never made me feel crazy.

They just smiled and said,

“It’s good to see you.”

Sometimes they let me sweep the floors or take out the trash.

Sometimes I thought I worked there.

And they never corrected me.

That small mercy —

that quiet respect —

was everything.

The truth is, I never got the help I needed.

Not enough hospital beds.

Not enough doctors.

Not enough time for someone to figure out

which version of me could still be saved.

There weren’t enough systems.

There weren’t enough second chances.

There just… weren’t enough.

So today, someone found my body in the woods.

I don’t know if they’ll do an autopsy.

Probably not.

I was indigent —

one more John Doe in a long list of forgotten names.

But today, I died.

And I hope now,

someone will remember that I once lived.

That I once dreamed.

That I once mattered.

Today I died.

Maybe now,

someone will finally know my name