Help Free Chris Malec, Florida’s Prison Poet Laureate

Chris Malec was sentenced to life in prison without parole at the age of 21 for a crime he did not commit.

Chris was arrested for armed robbery. Even though the victim claimed that only one person committed the crime, his co-defendant, who testified that he committed the entire crime without any knowledge on the part of Chris, Chris was convicted. His co-defendant even told the jury that Chris shouldn't do any time for something Chris didn’t do.

Unfortunately, a negligent public defender, an overzealous prosecutor and a prejudiced jury used a Florida law called the "principle theory" to convict Chris anyways.

Of the 4 people arrested for the crime, Chris is the only one still incarcerated.

Chris has spent the last 13 years behind bars. Despite the injustice, Chris has made the most of his circumstances, pushing himself to continue to live in the face of such loss. He is an accomplished poet, student and advocate. In 2021, Chris was named Florida Prison Poet Laureate. He became a certified inmate law clerk and helps other people perfect their own appeals.. Chris has graduated from over 40 self-betterment programs and courses. He has written essays and poetry that have been published. In 2021, he was interviewed by NPR to share his story. Chris has done more while incarcerated than most free people do and with far fewer resources.

Chris is currently appealing his sentence at the District Court of Appeals and he needs our help. We are raising money to support Chris’s legal fees, which could cost upwards of $15,000. Most immediately, he needs to raise $950 for a court transcript.

Chris is an inspiration. He is an example of what it means to hold onto hope, in the face of darkness. Let’s do what we can to show up for Chris.

I AM WHAT I AM

by Christopher Malec, Prison Poet Laureate, 2021

I am melancholic 808s

Psyching up the synths

I am the lighter

In a sidewalk oracle cipher

The beat

For a No.2 desktop DJ

The rush

In a fallen god’s needle

I am the best bill

In a beggar’s palm

The purest stone

In an artist’s charm

I am summer

Sizzling blood on asphalt

I am winter

Freezing reasons to put masks on

I am a cape

Without headlights

And no brake pads

Stuck in 6th gear

In the middle of the night

I am sorry

I am regret

I am despair

Cemented in cold closure

You can sympathize

But don’t try to read

Behind these brown eyes

I am a backroad bus stop

On a discontinued route

The isolated intercostal

With the bridges up

A traumatized highway

With closed exit ramps

I am a moment in time

Standing as a statue in memory

An enigma outside the dead end

Of answer’s street

I am the most underlined page

In an excessively dog-eared book

The patience biding

A super nova’s escape

I am the myth

Legends fear thrives

Unbound by belief

Hungry to come alive

I am pain

I am misery

I am torture

All under control

You may look

But don’t try to pet this soul

I am an angry city

Throwing a fit

A prowling park

With too many blind spots

An unlit alley

Behind a corner store

A corner

That ignores stop signs

I am the nagging nightmare

Detesting a despot’s sleep

A stubborn hunger

In unyielding famine

A drop of the tsunami

That will flood the flames of hell

A condemned persistence

Against draconian indifference

I am the spite

That swings

Pendulum under a dead clock

Don’t rage against my righteous

Cause I’m not the incarnation of insane

But I am peace

In the angriest possible way

I am starvation

I am poverty

I am oppression

Tied up in a knot of resistance

Take a listen

But don’t bother refuting my witness

I am not the quill

Signing every sign protesting the misleads

I am the first fist

Thrown in a rebellion’s riot

The first cigar

Fuming successful revolution

The breath that persists

In search of freedom

The final resolve

In a quest for meaning

I breathe equality

Weep justice

And sweat abolition

Happiness is my envy

Mastery my muse

Apotheosis my goal

But for life

I lust

I am destruction

Bent on recreation

An uprising

Fixed on reform

And apocalypse

Obsessed with redemption

I am antonym

And analogy

I am axiom

And parable

I am spoken

And written

I am dream

And reality

I am

Love

And

I am

Hate

The same passion

Fueled two different ways