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

Summer School

The summer my teacher didn’t kiss me was set to a soundtrack of show tunes and The Shins, the whisper of smoke in my ears as he taught me how to breathe it. "Don't cough," he instructed, the pads of his fingers on the hollow of my neck, the whites of his eyes glowing gold beneath the pendulum of light suspended from the ceiling, the breath between us more intoxicating than the drugs. The boundaries were blurred, I knew that. He was mine to lose, I believed that. But he had better students, and I forgot to account for that.

Chelsey Pippin Mizzi is a writer and tarot reader based in Avignon, France. Instagram: @pipcardstarot Substack: The French Dispatch

Los Ebanos

Christmas