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Jerome Revilla Nov 2011
I used to put these headphones on.
And at once, the whole world was gone
And the music did no wrong
Till I found myself doin’ it all day long.

But I still kept these headphones on
Because my headset drowned my strife,
Cut through it like a knife,
Till I was bound to the music for all my life.

I used to sit in earnest at my computer chair
ITunes and my iPod in hand as I prepare
Another playlist.
Indecisive between hip-hop and RnB
While I let humanity’s problems sit on a wait-list.

But I just left these headphones on.
Not a care or thought about global pollution
Amidst our world’s confusion
All signs pointing to a troubled conclusion,
But yet, me and my headphones ignore the solutions.

Why? Because music forever plays,
That even when solutions were raised,
I just sat there…
As the environment died everyday.

Because all I did was listen to these headphones.
As I laid awake in my bed,
Nothing running through my head,
Except music,
And I felt alive listening to the words that was said
When in reality Inside I was dead

But I still left these headphones in
So I can block out my parent’s groans when
I know that I have disappointed them
Maybe I’m just missing the point again.

And all the while my dads fist connecting with the door
As he has always done before, in the past
Choosing to ignore, with music full blast
I found myself more and more detached.

Not only my parents, but even the politicians are itchin’
To get me to listen,
Hopin and wishin that
This generation would eventually find its ambition.

I used to think that iTunes could do no wrong.
And that it was all I ever needed
Because all it was to me was a program full of songs
But I didn’t like where my life was headed.

And god it’s amazing, the word iTunes.
Such a fitting name
Because I tuned my friends out
And there is no one else to blame
As I tuned my parents out
Our relationship will never be the same
As I tuned the world out
Now look at who I became.

So now I’m taking these headphones off.
Because I don’t want to stay connected
Acting like I was totally unaffected
When in fact, the world around me I neglected
So I’ll change,
No longer will these headphones hold the reins
I am cutting off all of my chains
And I know a life ahead of me still remains
That without these headphones,
There is so much more to gain.
I wrote this on 12/2010 as a spoken word piece. During this time, I was in a low point of my life with my low grades, failing relationship with my girlfriend, and constant fights with my parents and my poor health due to living next to an oil refinery. I turned to music and relied on it to forget my problems. I soon realized that i cannot hide behind songs and i had to face and solve my problems instead of running from them.
Breeze-Mist  Jun 2017
Headphones
Breeze-Mist Jun 2017
I'm walking down a path I know
I got the volume on full blast
I've still got thousands of verses to go
I intend to make each last
But someone walks up to me
Telling me to cease and desist
I begrudgingly comply
But in my mind, I say this:

Don't talk to me now, my headphones are on
I'm dancing in my mind to my song
My feet match the kicker, my heart beats the snare
In this moment, I don't have a care
So while I've got my headphones on
Please take note, I'll carry on

It's the end of the day, I'm finally home
All homework and chores have been done
So I walk up to my room, warm and alone
And soon the phone's concert has begun

So I say
Don't talk to me now, my headphones are on
I'm dancing in my mind to my song
My feet match the kicker, my heart beats the snare
In this moment, I don't have a care
So while I've got my headphones on
Please take note, I'll carry on

I've got two more hours on this ride
Through a long and quiet night
But I've got a little help by my side
To get me to the morning light

So I say
Don't talk to me now, my headphones are on
I'm dancing in my mind to my song
My feet match the kicker, my heart beats the snare
In this moment, I don't have a care
So while I've got my headphones on
Please take note, I'll carry on

Don't talk to me now, my headphones are on
I'm dancing in my mind to my song
My feet match the kicker, my heart beats the snare
In this moment, I don't have a care
So while I've got my headphones on
Please take note, I'll carry on
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2018
headphones...

   no, really,

headphones...

there's a massive difference
between playing a record
outside the realm
of headphones...

yep, headphones...

because headphones are great,
sure...
    drowning out the mechanically
maniacal sounds of
the drone sound of the hive
of cars, and other clutters
for the ears...

but...
     put a record on,
on a windy afternoon...
**** i'm old...
2009...
the year that the **
released their debut, self-titled
album...

now i'm starting to think:
am i claustrophobia prone
listening to music
on my headphones?
well... not when i'm performing
a juggling act on
the street, whereby i'm
countering agoraphobia
with listening to music
on my headphones
while i walk the open spaces
and sidewinder roads...

i just forgot how good music
sounds, when it fills,
occupies a room...
it's almost like returning to
the status of a fetus...
then music... resonates...
when music, expands,
vibrates,

and when it couples with
the shuffling sound of the wind
passing, swaying, flirting
with the trees?

i'll give the English this point...
the **'s debut,
or alt-J's debut albums...
there's no punk counter
to the haunting, atmospheric
fission of ****** the **** out
of memory...

but i do feel reembodied,
which is not disembodied...

headphones...

    no, not a car radio doing
1 on 1 time while strapped
to a linear projection of movement
and subsequent custard of
stand-still trapped in traffic...

i'm talking:
   music on the stereo...
blasting at volume 16...
incubating you in a room of sound,
with the window open
and the orchestra of the wind
to boot / boost the whole
point of: listening to an entire
album...

mind you... the concept of the album
focused on what the modern song
is / lasts...
    3 minutes, or thereabouts...
so? the album had to add a bit fat 0
to the consensus...
      roughly 30 minutes' worth
for a success story...
             with regards to an album...

no... this is the first time i've experienced
this sort of transformation,
battery dead, last resort...
not exactly papa roach territory of
teenage angst outlet necessities...
more like a sly bagel from
the Gants Hill Jewish bakery...

**** me... the resonance with this album,
when music fulfills the confines
of 3 dimensions,
rather than the 2 dimensions of
headphones...
  
     the background noise back-up...
the cackling magpie,
the wind brushing the trees or at least,
orchestrating an attempt of
confusing itself with the breath of man,
while supposing to play
a woodwind / flute...

so confined: this precision making...
it's like with every passing second
i am born, i am dead,
i am reborn, and death...
            becomes this trivial
choreography that only attempts
to perfect my mortal: stature;
such a humbling experience...
        i pity the people who gesticulate
a furthered accomplishment
of subservience toward a prayer.
Jake O May 2017
I present for you
A user’s manual
For your new set of headphones

First: connect to your device
You may need a cord
Or use Bluetooth
But you need to connect to an outside source
The headphones do not come with a playlist

Second: put the headphones on
Make sure you maintain maximum ear coverage
Headphones are not as effective if you can hear the outside world
The thud of footsteps
The jumble of conversations
The pitter patter of rain
And the sound of laughter
Are not as harmonious as your music

Finally: begin the first song
Listen to it blissfully
Because only you can enjoy it
No one else is allowed in on your personal concert
There is no need to take off your headphones
There is no need to turn the volume down
There is no need to disconnect from your mobile device
Because here
No one can hurt you
You can’t hurt anyone
And you can pass by the world like a ship in the night

The headphones have a lifetime warranty
However, we cannot refund you
On the time, friends or opportunities you might have lost
While using our product

Sincerely, your inner coward
Sleepy Sigh  Sep 2010
Headphones
Sleepy Sigh Sep 2010
I like my headphones for the
Insulation. Sometimes my ears
Take in too much stray noise,
Dredge up too much disorienting
Mud from the depths of a TV
Screen or an iPod. Then I can
Always snuggle into my headphones
And be silent - and silence is a
Dear dear commodity, to be sure,
When every other scene-
Stealing, pudgy-mouthed buffoon
Has to put his ten cents in. So
Much sound should be a sin;
Background music, ambient noise,
Music for airports, and pubescent
Boys screeching from tinny silver
Speakers near the wall. I don't
Want it, not every bit, not all
The hate and the slippery tongues
That speak and salivate and don't
Say anything human. I want to reprimand,
To excommunicate them from
This Holy rite of sound. (And really,
I would be content to never hear
Music if I could block out the roundabout
Fights and the sultry nightlife descriptions
Gushing from my screen, if I could
Use my headphones to keep
That liquid crystal from pouring in
My too needfully silent ears.)
Maybe I'll follow a painter's path:
All visuals and open dripping wet
Wrath with a noisy race. I can be a
Terrifying girl. Cut off my ears and
Be deaf to the world. Wrap me in
Canvas and chase me back into the
Woods on a starry starry night.
you know the drill

Meh.
Escape from reality
No where to go
As i lay on my bed
No where to go?
With these headphones i can go places
With each track is a new adventure
With these headphones its like time travel
Past. Present. Future.
You know you want to turn it up louder
The higger the volume
The deeper you go
Pause, play, pause, then play button
You are trying to groove
But cant help if you are needed
Wish these headphones could make me invisible
"Oh what do you want?
Im listening to my music."
Mateuš Conrad May 2017
well... i'd call this self-medication, or at least some sort of
"understanding" of what happened to me.
            people who i tell that it happened to me,
are still deluded in "thinking" that it didn't.
      you know how painful a brain hemorrhage
can be?                      well... it's fat oozing blood,
and it's not as painful as breaking a bone -
                                       but it's an exquisite pain;
this is why i write, like i said once:
my life's so ******* boring, that i just had to write about it;
and that really makes sense, because the writing
potential is, inexhaustible.
           but that really made me think about something,
namely the treatment of having suffered
                                                  a brain hemorrhage.
physiotherapy aside, i wanted to concentrate
                         on a cartesian model with regards
to the problem... the    mind vs. body,
                              or not necessarily the vs. but
the dualism / dichotomy.
                    physiotherapy treats the body...
but that's because physiotherapy only treats the body,
rather than the brain itself; and i'm guessing:
     all that idle chit-chat fusing comfort with hope.
the actual brain though? it's not actually treated.
physiotherapy doesn't treat the "mind" (i.e. brain) -
because it only treats the body.
               now, you see, i thought up a solution to treat the brain...
by the way: it worked with me, i don't know
if it might work with other people.
            the premise is...         brain is fat-electric, right?
      it's not a muscle, it's not a bone, it's not cartilage,
it's not fibrous collagen (tendon),
            it's fat... which is why omega-3 is really advocated
to be ingested to keep it healthy (the brain),
   as are nuts... brazil nuts, hazelnuts... cashews...
but i'm thinking about treating the brain,
       not outside of physiotherapy, but as including it -
well... the brain... fat-electric... synapses and lightning...
once again, this is a trial & error effort to consider...
     how about... simply pulverising the brain with loud
music, using headphones? **** me... that's a real frankenstein
move... using electricity to, how to say it:
         dry off the blood that spilled out of the brain?
since isn't that a way to somehow treat the brain
         while at the same time treating the body?
         you use electric currents of music blasting from
headphones to, dry off the blood that has just oozed out...
       you could have periods of physiotherapy...
but also periods of someone lying down, with headphones
on, and listening to their favourite music, really loud,
to rejuvenate the electric fat, that the brain is.
in the anglophone world we're already talking about
   nietzsche's fear: imagine talking for the whole of mankind...
so if we're already doing that in a cultural darwinism,
and that only means numbers and abstracted individualism,
what could possibly go wrong with this sort of experiment
i'm proposing?    a few people would go into seizures
and die... listening to their favourite music?
      i mean... birds singing? that's ****** annoying...
the only bird i can stomach is a crow - simply because he's
not adamant on expressing: oh it's spring! it's spring!
well... you know... just an idea... but it might work:
pulverising the brain with electricity... and that's not to say
it's the psychiatric sadism of e.c.t. (electroconvulsive therapy),
because what i'm suggesting is bypassing the bone structure,
and heading into soft tissue, using music,
                    to pulverise the brain with loud music.
song of choice? kmfdm's megalomaniac, or juke joint jezebel.
Melo  Sep 2018
Headphones
Melo Sep 2018
These students are walking
There headphones are blaring
Disattached from the world
Blankly they are staring

I glance at the clock
Not wanting to talk
My headphones are broken
So silent i walk

Forced to find
Something that will blind
A kind of distraction
To keep from the demons in the back of my mind

Away from the fears
The wandering ears
So evil are the demons
That bring me to tears

The looming of dept
The fear of regret
Without any distraction
I cannot forget

My headphones are broken
The demons have awoken
This silence it scares me
As do the fears i have spoken

This walk is taking forever
This heat a blistering fever
Forced to be grounded
With nothing to be a deceiver

My headphones are broken
My dark thoughts have risen
The evil I try to tuck away
Anger, pain, and fear I am stricken

Finally back in my room
Protection from the lurking doom
I blast the music as loud as i can
And the demons return to their tomb
Matt  Nov 2015
My Headphones
Matt Nov 2015
My headphones
Are wonderful

I can tune out
The people
That live here

My headphones
Are usually on

They let people know
I don't want to talk

The people
That live here
Really have nothing
To say

That matters much to me

Thank goodness for headphones
Damian Acosta Apr 2010
On my way home from work-- as I stared at the random stranger with the shy eyes but eager smile across from me on the G train-- it happened. It was almost hallucinatory. I rubbed my eyes, stared up at the lights and moved on to another equally random stranger sitting on the other end of the train. He wore his headphones with pride, and the smile beaming from his face was in constant motion-- lip syncing to some unheard voice-- when it happened again... I had an "Out of Life" experience.

You know those dreams where you find yourself standing over your body? Those dreams where you just lift away from your fleshy home, and glide? They're called "Out of Body" experiences and what happened to me on the G, was similar in sensation. Except instead of shedding my body, I shed my life.

Staring at these "strangers" and seeing their idiosyncrasies-- the girl with shy eyes, the guy with the proud smile, the uncomfortable woman next to me-- I suddenly disappeared. My life, my experiences, my families, my thoughts and worries, just silenced.... as if someone had taken my soul and removed everything that was Me from it and placed it inside a trophy case outside of Me. Inside it I could see the memories of my life moving and shifting. Some frozen in place-- the only memory of my grandmother was a black and white picture-- while some were vividly alive, like my first time on stage. But there I was standing, looking inside this memory trophy case wondering what this could mean.

SNAP! Suddenly I'm back on the G train. The girl is now shyly talking to the woman next to her, "The first time I saw you at work I thought you kind of looked like Loretta, from Family Guy, and I've just been wanting to tell you that for the longest!" she giggled self-consciously. The woman did look like Loretta, I thought. "Loretta" then distorts her face into confusion and mutters "Thanks?" and off they went into a conversation about work. The guy with the Dre headphones is swiping through his iPhone. And I am suddenly back outside of my life, on some distant fringe of the shores of my mind.

Is it dark? Is there sound? Where's the trophy case? Where am I? Just blankness. Then with an odd inaudible pop, the Dre headphones guy and shy girl appear in front of me. However not in their body form. Instead they're appearance is rather shapeless, more like glowing wisps with observant eyes. From within each of them I can hear the echos of their conversations of the physical world and the soft muffled singing of the headphones, yet all I see are these two energy globes staring at me; Not menacingly, not anxiously, but peacefully.

The crackled and static laden "Next stop Classon. Stand clear of the closing doors please." brings me back into my body, my life, my experiences, my pain, my insecurities, my job, my dreams, my hunger, my existence. I look at the two strangers... and wait. I must have seemed so intensely crazy, but it felt like it needed to be done. So I waited for them to just look at my eyes... and they did.

In that instant it all made sense. I no longer saw the shy stranger or the headphones stranger or Loretta. I saw beyond their experiences, beyond their lives, beyond their dreams, beyond their strategies of how to move through this world as a man/woman. For that split millisecond, when we made eye contact, I felt and saw the Me in them....That raw uninhibited self that has no country, no religion, no political party-- that part of ourselves that has been observing existence. That part of us that has no physical shape, that observer that has no gender, that part of you that you hide oh so well... I saw.

As I gather up my things, I can't help but smile at the simplicity of it and yet how hard it was to see... The doors open and I now find myself having an "Inner Body and Life" experience as I step off the G train.
2010

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