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

Reunited

I journey 8,500 miles to meet you. It takes two days and two planes. When we see each other, we cry and rush to embrace. In your arms, I feel your cautious hands caressing my hair, patting my back. It’s like they can’t believe I’m real. When you push me away to look at my face, yours is contorted in sorrow and guilt. I give you a smile to say it’s okay. Your baby girl, the one you left on the street one April morning 31 years ago, forgives you. We leave the airport reunited as Father and Daughter.

LuLu Grant is a transracial Chinese adoptee writer and ESL teacher who lives in Mexico. She has words in Hippocampus Magazine.

Turning Point

Worn Love