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

Chalk

We walk through cathedrals of chalk. The place is wild and unfamiliar, although only a few hours from home. With each step the colors change: pink, orange, purple, white. I watch the sun move across your face as our laughter climbs through hoodoos and spires, echoing among canyon walls. We are new to each other, learning one another in this place we’ve never been. We leave a trail of footprints in the dust and I think about how every step changes the landscape. I think about how each person changes us so that we too are never quite the same.

Marisa Gedgaudas is a writer originally from Colorado who now lives on the bluffs of Northern California. She is inspired by wild beauty and tender vulnerability. Instagram: @marisavictoriapoetry

Growing Out

Mom's Girl