The Asia Project.

A few weeks ago, i was sitting in my 6th hour with my friends and we were doing a write about our "personal buckets". The buckets we were writing about were buckets of despair, pain and hurt in several different aspects of our lives. Similar to my identity book, Mrs. Reifert wanted us to dig deep into our life. She wanted us to go farther than we've ever gone before. We wrote two versions of our 'bucket'. The first one she let us write it any way we wanted, and the second she made us re-write the story with the prompt of; something magical happened to your bucket, craft a story with an inspirational and positive ending.

My first bucket was very dark, and it was a great challenge for me to re-write the story. Sitting at our table are my friends John, Addy, Ashley and I. Addy, was the only senior and when Mrs. Reifert gave us the prompt, Addy asked if she could play a song to the class. She thought it fit right in with our writing. And it did.

The Asia Project is a young man who writes poetry and performs them to thousands of people. His journey started when he was diagnosed with cancer at a very young age. He made a promise with God, that if he made it through the cancer he would live each day like he was dying.

He survived.

And now he's living up to his promise. Poetry slamming is when a person reads poetry in form of a song, but talking not singing. It's very relaxing and makes your mind focus. Especially his poetry. He has so many amazing pieces, all that have a moral lesson.  And even his most in-appropriate one, is one of my favorite ones because of the message.

After listening to his first one in class, i became hooked. And now, when I'm stressed, i listen to him close my eyes and try to take in all he has to offer.

I was driving in the car, must have been a few weeks ago with Ian and i had my phone hooked up to his radio.  We were actually listening to take me to the river by Desperation, on repeat but one of us hit the next button and Sunscreen by Asia came on, i didn't think much of it and went to go switch it because i didn't think he'd want to listen to it but he stopped me.

He was very familiar with the Asia Project, and so we continued to listen to him while my face beamed. I was just really happy.

Ian introduced me to some of his oldest poems, the darkest ones, and of course the funniest ones.

Because of Asia, i was able to craft my second bucket story. It's one of my favorite pieces of writings from my Creative Writing class and i even got a 25/20 on it! (:

So... here it is;

She’s afraid. She’s hurt. She’s mad. She’s sad. She’s so consumed in the negative that even on the warmest day of the year she’s doesn’t feel the slightest ounce of sunlight touch her skin. Stuck inside herself so far that her inner voice in incapable of speaking up. They tell her she’ll be okay, but she doesn’t believe them. The scars are hidden from the outside world. Not one person knows about them. When she see’s them she knows that she’ll never amount to anything. She’s no better than her sisters and her mother. They tell her to suck it up and stand up tall when the truth is; she wants none of this, none of it at all. A smile so permanently plastered on her face, a ‘happy girl’ they would so easily mistake. Buried so deep with so many surrounding padlocks, the idea of revealing her true self was something thought impossible. She feels so alone, the constant reminders surrounding her that she really is. The two people she truly ever felt like cared for her; are buried ten feet under. The life that was once manageable turned too hard to manage. She’s not wanted, and the constant getting yelled at and lectures remind her that. She doesn’t do anything right, absolutely nothing. She’s on her knees screaming to God to take her away, let her life just seem to fade away. The tears running down her face wiping away the mascara she had so carefully applied. The burning sensation in her lungs from hyperventilating make it pure torture when she yelps out that she cant do it anymore. She’s done, she quits. Head pounding, heart beating too fast, face beat red. She manages to scream out, “God help me” as the razor blade makes one last slice across her arm. She drops it on the ground. Her heart starts to slow down, face start to return to a normal shade, and her crying becomes less and less. A sudden rush of peace overcomes her body. As if Gods hand is truly reaching down and touching her shoulder, she shivers. An unfathomable strength overtakes her body. She’s lifted to her feet, standing tall. She then knows that she’s not alone. She has a purpose, and she needs to find it. Life will come to that breaking point, but she’ll be okay because she may not have her father, mother or grandma- but she does have an amazing God that will try to protect her from most storms. He put her here for a reason. She whispers a prayer. She gets rid of the blade, she doesn’t need it. She goes outside to look at how beautiful everything is. A dysfunctional girl, in a mad, crazy world….and yet everything, will be just okay.


Below, I'm posting some of Asia Projects work.  I highly recommend at least watching the first two. Take them in. Actually listen.  Get rid of all the distractions around you. His poetry is beautiful and will give you a sense of peace.

The first one i am posting is called sunscreen. It's one of my favorite pieces he has.

The second one, is one of the saddest ones, but it gives you hope.

This last and final one, is one that I'm going to post, is probably the funniest one, well at least in the beginning. It's one of my favorite messages.