Child hood and Innocence: still existent?

Barbie dolls, frilly dresses, a dumb eyed look, pigtails and funny hairdos, the gender biased stereotypes, the “that’s too boyish for me” or “that’s too boyish for YOU”, were all attributes of my childhood, either my own opinion( that is if I had any of my own) or things that my mum forced into my head. I was constantly dressed in pink, whether I really liked it or not, only because it made me look “oh so cute”. I resented every bit of it (or mostly, I admit I actually liked barbies once, loved them really), I felt my years of childhood went totally according to the way my parents decided. Barely anytime for tantrums, I ate what was forced down my throat. Yes often I did fight it off, but I didn’t have an option later, that stuff ended going down my throat. We would be told that a bogie man would come eat us up if we refused to swallow that last morsel of whatever. We believed that lie. No questions asked, no answers replied. Yes, kids around my time were pretty dumb.
And NOW, I stand before my seven year old niece, dumbfounded, staring at her unblinkingly, after she made a comment on marriage and told my aunt to shut up, something I only became accustomed to doing about, maybe lets say, three years back? “Marriages today are more chilled out, so don’t you force me to do anything, and please don’t talk about it, I have YEARS to go for that issue.” She said to my aunt, rolling her eyes, head cocked at an angle. My jaw fell open. My aunt laughed and simply hugged that girl.
I’m talking about a SEVEN year old girl. This set me wondering, did I even think like that, or even DARE to think that way, let alone blurt it out. I remember vaguely, while watching a T.V. program, I asked my mother whether the woman was fat because she was pregnant. For an answer I got a slap across my face, and a warning to behave my age. Then on, I never questioned, even when I got my first sex education lesson in school in the fifth. I feared that slap till my mother to felt I was grown up enough. And Kids today, know exactly what sex is, they do know that when somebody has sex, they’re prone to get pregnant. At my age I didn’t even dare to think and relate those things. Or was too busy playing with my kitchen things, dolls and friends. If such thought or word ever issued from my lips, I would be issued a tight slap across my face. And today, the parents simply hug their children and say “ awww isn’t my child so brilliant! “ Right!
Darn! Still I do wish I was born into this generation!
Well, yes im talking about how much children’s thought’s have “evolved” according to the passing time if I can out it that way.
We were innocent or rather dumb, and we were children. Can you really define these beings as children anymore? Where an average child today knows the basics of sex, at least what are the results etc, know to some extent about the “bases” of a pre-marital relationship,
Today, I see my youngest cousins, nieces and nephews, all of around the ages of 4- 10 years talking BIG. I mean big. BIG overgrown thoughts, PHILISOPHY for god’s sake, opinions of subjects we barely even set our own thoughts on, everything. They even rebel at that age, refuse to wear those frilly dresses, because it makes them look far to girly, play football with boys, since they find that cool, and sift through pages of Harry potter. I used to struggle to read even Red Riding hood without my mum’s help, (but yes I was only 4 then, so don’t look at me like that). Children’s tastes, thoughts have evolved so much its hard to really call them children or innocent at all. These words suit those pink crawling babies, toothless, unaware and mumbling. Once that kid learns to speak, I know, they’ve jumped the whole growth process, and the innocence from them is slowing fading. It’s a warning, next time you face a seven year old, be armed with a shield, the kid will verbally blow your mind and make you appear dumb.
Just the way I stand before this kid, speechless, fumbling for the right words, and actually taking care that I wont say something stupid. Innocent? Hah, she thinks I’m far too innocent to understand what she says.

Ghost

Wandering about the empty house,

at the mid hour of the night,

Pinpricks within my skin arouse,

sensation of hands around my neck feel tight.

Nobody but me is here in this house,

do I tell myself over and over again,

Yet there's that someone who's always around,

Is its really in this room, or just within my brain?

I sit down on the cold floor, shivering,

its not the floor that makes me do,

a cold draught escapes my lips,

my shawl feels damp, cold sinking in through.

Its the hour past midnight,

and my head lolls while I sit on the floor,

and falls upon an unseen shoulder,

who caresses my face as I snore?

arms cradle me, raise me from the ground,

swiftly I feel myself rise above then glide slowly,

my eyelids far too heavy to ope,

to see who carries me so gently.

I forget in my deep slumber,

That I was the only one at home,

All alone; yet this someone caring and knowing carries me,

Then “good night” whispers a voice, I’ve heard that tone.

The whole night through I sense this stranger by my side,

I thought I embraced it while I slept,

I felt my hands against a chest I swear,

I felt the heart beat; a rise and fall of the chest.

I dreamt a dream and saw the face,

The ghost it was, who lay near me,

That face I felt I knew somewhere,

Where had I seen him, I couldn’t heed whether it was reality.

But I knew that embrace, so familiar,

this was a dream I told myself, or was it real,

Dream it was my soul told me,

find yourself asleep on the floor, doubts shall clear.

Dawn crept in chasing shadows away,

My ghost kissed me goodbye in my dream,

I smiled and bid goodbye too,

And ope my eyes, to break away from my dream.

The cold floor I did not find beneath me,

As my soul had promised me while I slept,

My bed I sat on, the comforter covering me,

Unnerved at this happening, chills up my spine had crept.

I closed my eyes, to summon that ghost,

From my dreams; that embrace, that kiss

Upon my forehead had he given me,

Felt so real, yet everything was amiss.

I wanted my ghost to come back,

And confide with me, That moment was lost,

I could not commute with him then

in my sleep; love this I felt, within me a lot.

ill wait one more night for my ghost to come by,

dream of reality, talk to him through,

ask him about his story, who, what and why,

ask him where do I know him from, why the things he did do?

Sleepless do my nights go by now,

I await for my head to loll and sleep,

The floor feels cold no more,

No misty breath yet, my heart foolishly skips.

The demon inside of me

“Eyes, blank, lost, and empty, stare on, fixedly at the woman at the other end of the room. Within the mind, there’s havoc, a turbulent storm that’s building up fast, rage against a woman who so frivolously dismissed her to be the most hopeless student she’d ever come across, saying she had no hope in the future with anything, and might as well try correspondence or salesman ship for her career. “ Malevolence was the word.

Anger welled within her, blanketing her mind with deep dark thoughts. Her mind, that would never be capable to ever come up with even the nastiest word to insult anyone or ever think of hurting anyone, was thinking of so many morbid thoughts. Filled with sheer contempt, was her mind. That mind was mine. That girl was me.

I sat there just looking on, my face so blank, anger so heated within my head, it would’ve exploded. I felt a vein throb fast in my temple. I was surely losing it. And surely the only way to prevent me from losing all control was a distraction. The distraction was her torture, my imagination at its peak.

There as that filth of a woman rambled on with her lessons, I got lost in the most sadistic ventures even id never thought I would imagine. Oh well, now that I was, be on with it. And tell you what it felt good. Before I tell you what I thought I would tell you it felt Oh so good, to just imagine that woman shrieking her head off in my sadistic fantasy. My imagination was so vivid at the point of time, it felt as though it was all really happening, I could actually hear her shrill shrieks and screams in my ear.

Unfortunately, to actually carry out such atrocious actions, would obviously lead to my doom as well, so i'd might as well imagine it. I could get back at her either wise.

So here’s what went on in my mind. I felt so thrilled, at the thought of her being hung upside down, with hooks through her toenails, droplets of blood slowing trickling down her ugly mane. It was a train of processes, she went through. Imagining such things is so good, you keep the person alive, yet you torture them in a way that would kill them in reality. I saw her, her arm, very slowly, millimeter by millimeter, ripping off, her skin stretching and snapping, like cloth being ripped ever so slowly. I saw her face, pulled in the most grotesque expression, her face purple and screaming in pain. She was strapped onto a ply board, her arms and legs stretched apart, tied to pulleys in all four corners. The rope slowly pulled at her, ripping her limbs from her body.

All this form of torture may rather seem ever so exaggerated, but really, as I read it out, don’t you think it’ll make you feel content, after you imagine your most hated person going through the same?

So hence I carry on, this is what went on in my blackened devilish mind.

In my mind I saw myself closely observing her skin stretch further on, till it lost its elasticity and snapped. I saw the skin snap, then the veins, blue and red, beneath, then the flesh, curl and turn as her limbs stretched on. Blood fell upon the floor, one enormous red puddle, filling the floor. Her screams of pain echoed in the dungeons inside my head. Needles stabbed her eyes over and over; she could do nothing but scream. I saw flare guns appear from nowhere, and begin burning her from a distance, focused on spots all around her body, burning her slowly.

“Anees, come back to planet earth, you inadequate waste of skin and bone.” I heard her shrill voice screaming at me from across the class. All the other students were staring back at me. Her ugly face was blotched purple, the same way it was when she was being tortured in my day dream.

I nodded, and pretended to take down notes. Everyone got their attention back to the class. Never mind the embarrassment, this day dream was worth it.

As I wrote, a smile slowly curled across my face. The demon laughed and made merry.

The demon inside of me.