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

Just One More

I get Jaimie to the bathroom before she can vomit all over my new jeans, but she misses anyway—our price for being drunk and seventeen. She's my best friend and everything more, which makes this that much harder. Her fingers claw at the toilet bowl and I pretend not to see the hatch marks on her wrist. Is there an appropriate reaction to finding out your everything wants to die? "I want another shot," she says. "You really shouldn't," I reply, but I take her hand and we go back out anyway. What else can I do? Pour. Slam. Swallow.

Gia Kim is a chemistry student from New Jersey who only sometimes finds time to write.

She Means Well

Banana Bread