Mona’s writing appeared in:
Featured writing
I Run For Freedom
Every morning, Mona steps out of bed with her sciatic foot screaming murder, puts on her running shoes, and lies back down because standing for more than thirty seconds sends red-hot daggers down her spine. Then she heads out to run—except, she can’t stop and stand. Not at a traffic light, not to order a coffee.
Mind you, Mona can’t sit either. Especially not at work, where the academic hyenas scream her name in abusive emails daily. One toxic boss after another strips her of her grant money, her intellectual ownership, and her dignity. And yet, she continues on her path, hoping to become a tenured professor in biomedical engineering.
Mona’s only way to succeed in academia appears to involve ignoring her body. At least that’s what her childhood abuse has taught her. But the disability, invisible to others, begins to scream louder than the hyenas, louder than life, louder than anything she’s ever heard.
How much trauma will she endure to get to the pinnacle of her career before she sets herself free? Will we watch Mona run towards her finish line of personal freedom, or will she step back into her confinement, only to endure more damage to her body?
Waiting For Love
I hide at the top of the stairwell, aching for my grandmother’s hug. Behind me, the red door to our private quarters. Below, our guests; in conversations over rolls with our homemade jam, using our tableware.
Windshield Wipers
This piece was shortlisted for the 2024 WestWord Flash Prize.
I'm so sorry that I left the windshield wiper halfway up. I'm sorry it stuck up like your sore thumb with no way to come down from its high, the kind of high you were on as I behaved like myself again, that way that nobody but you would put up with in all those million years I've stayed.
Hollow Pain
Wanting to take back her words, it was too late. The teacher made eye contact with me, and her face had lost much of its color. She tried to hug me as my tears came.
Belonging
"How do you heal from such things, things that are bigger than you, from history? How do you forgive yourself when there’s never in a thousand moons enough shame for one person to feel? Enough shame to make up for the cruelty of an entire atrocious era in time?"
Shameful Friendships
“‘You need to cover your arms – you're way too skinny,’ my best friend said over dinner. I shoveled more peanut sauce over my meal, just so she wouldn't think I was trying to be thin on purpose.”