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

I Don't Want To

tell you about the woman at the vintage bazaar in Providence, even though it’s true. That when she held the dress out for me to step into, I felt her fingers brush along my neck. I felt her hold me, in that second when the fabric bunched in front of my face, muffling for a moment the world. I don’t want to tell you how much of me drew towards her, pulling at the sleeves, cinching the waist, her touch—without prurience or expected reciprocity—reaching towards the soft animal of me, without thinking of it, the most natural thing.

Sara Siegel is a small bundle of love and cynicism. She writes and makes art in Western Massachusetts. sara-siegel.com

Clutch

Lamentations