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

Crush

This is not desire, a hot and burning ache that sputters and growls. This is gentle. This is soft. This is fierce, like a current that obeys only the moon and sea. This swells in my chest and whispers in my ear. I tell it to shoo, to leave me be, but that sensation between my ribs does nothing but surge. Your arm slightly brushes my waist and it moves to my cheeks, an ambush that could drown me. I think you’re such a pretty boy. You’re too pretty to be splashed with this. What if you don’t like it?

Maisie McGrane is a high schooler from Charlottesville, Virginia. She loves her cat Inigo, music, and ginger tea.

Breathe Deep

The Family Van