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SERAFIMA OSINSTEVA, 18

Serafima Osintseva is a philologist, writer, and activist from Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Saint-Petersburg. She sees writing as a tool to express the sum of reality and one’s feelings and beliefs to create a beautiful outcome. Osintseva regards writing as one of the most accessible ways to express oneself as it forges a bond between reader and author. She feels that the symbiosis between one’s thoughts and language creates an experience of social commentary in poetry and books. Words are powerful when arguing one’s opinion, and Osintseva tries to inspire the people around her by telling the truth and highlighting the problems around Russia. Osintseva is deeply concerned with the increasing gaps between social groups. She won’t blame everything on capitalism but recognizes it’s large part in creating a dire situation around the world. She sees the role capitalism takes in the corruption of the state and the impoverishment of the masses, often depriving people of vital life opportunities. Money is the root of this systematic imbalance between the government and the people. As a Russian citizen, Osintseva sees her fellow citizens struggling to make enough money to live.

Osintseva has been a participant and laureate of such competitions as Northern Muse and Almira Bicculova’s competition of Literary Translations. Every year, she volunteers at Big Street Poet Festival. Outside of academics and writing, she organizes annual concerts for people with cognitive disabilities.

Osintseva is a student at the Moscow Maxim Gorky Literature Institute, majoring in creative writing and literary translations. She hopes to make this world a better place with her art, specifically cinematography and script writing for films. Only in a person’s art is it possible to see their true nature.

 

Space?

by Serafima Osintseva

My eyes are shut, I hear the pulse, I feel it inside my skull: pa-pa-pa-offbeat-pa-pa-pa. Before my eyes there are kaleidoscopic circles, splashes, flickers: and all this is spinning, rounding, changing in various planes, shimmering with the most cosmic colors I could ever imagine.

I fly and dissolve. I do not feel arms, legs, or body, only my heart is beating desperately at my temples, echoing in the emptiness of the universe. It feels like I am diving with scuba gear to a great depth, but the weights are not only on my waist, but on my whole body. And I fall, knowing that I will never surface. And what for? It’s beautiful here. Look, on the left, there is the Orion Nebula floats like a shred of cotton colored orange and blue. Look at the stars. In the distance they look like white satin birds: they shine, glow, are light and airy. I want to chase them, but keep sinking. The air around me is heating up, flashes becoming brighter and brighter. They look like Red Giants. Seems like I soon will crash into one of them.

Strange. I want to ask: “Is this a dream?”, but I can’t speak, I have no voice. I understand. This is a dream. A young couple, so similar to my parents from a black and white photo, has waltzed nearby. I deem I hear music, but it is very quiet, light, almost weightless. I do not attach importance to it and watch how the couple slips away farther and farther into darkness. Small satin birds start circling around it, and then completely carry this couple away. I float further, past the cold blackholes, which strive to absorb me. In them, some vaguely familiar pictures are seen. Perhaps my memories. Such blurry, defenseless, they break up into particles. I try to pull out at least a couple, but they start to crumble, turning into dust for new nebulae. I give up.

Space stains are becoming blurred. It's getting dark, and the birds, with their wings flapping for the last time, disappear…

Clink.

I open my eyes and see the light and my mom in its glimmers, who accidentally dropped the spoon.