Five Minutes explores five minutes of a life in one hundred words. Five minutes is edited by Susanna Baird, with editorial support from managing editor Maria s. picone, newsletter editor kate meen, and founding reader bobbi lerman, plus our rotating team of guest readers, who you can meet in the latest newsletteR. Five Minutes was founded in October 2020, with the Salem (Mass.)-based writing group Carrot Cake Writers supplying the journal’s first pieces. We’d love to read your five. Submit here

Blue No Red

Shoes go in an evidence baggie, bright red suede shrouded in plastic. Hey These Are Cool, the nurse says, taking them from you. No shoelaces allowed here. Never thought of shoelaces as a weapon. Learn something new every day. Receive a pair of light blue socks with a sticky bottom. Impossible to slide on the linoleum floors. Feel like a little kid, remind yourself you’re twenty-four. Realize how much you miss your shoes. Sticky-bottom socks feel like you’re walking through mud. Feet dangle off your bed. Blue this time, no red. Maybe you could have used that shoelace after all.

L Scully is a trans writer and double Capricorn based in Boston. Find them at lscullywriter.com and on Twitter @LRScully.

Wait the Night

My Champion