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

White Angst

“I didn’t know you hated me,” she texted. “Me neither,” I texted back. “What’s up?” A story I shared in a group we belonged to “cut her to the core.” I’d talked about the conundrum of enjoying gospel singers on YouTube and realizing that the audience included people from a state in the deep south. I had wondered how many white people in attendance would welcome a black woman into their homes. I texted her back, “My story was about the double consciousness of black life in America, nothing personal.” She thanked me for elaborating. I am weary of explaining.

Donna Williams is a self-published author who is working on a memoir about her upbringing in the Jim Crow South. Find Donna at lifepainlaughter.com and on Twitter and Instagram @donnanotdiva.

Double Chocolate

Missed Layers