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

Happy Birthday

The black pleather sofa was well worn from the tired bodies of so many young people that had come before me. The pictures on the walls were less glamorous than the first time I’d laid eyes on them; celebrities supporting an emergency shelter for homeless teens. I dropped my heavy backpack alongside the sofa and fiddled with the remote. Nothing good to watch; just passing time. The last five minutes of my childhood, waiting. Always waiting. Midnight struck, yet nothing changed. Well, nothing except the fact that I was suddenly an adult and would have to leave in the morning.

Sheryl Recinos is a frontline physician and author of Hindsight: Coming of Age on the Streets of Hollywood.

The Sting

Roadkill