Amaan Hyder

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ancestry

after i came out my mother said 
why did you choose this 
i said that i didn’t choose it 
but why are you making it 
so difficult for yourself 
why would i make it so 
difficult for myself i asked her 
yes why would you she said 
i said because i hadn’t chosen it 
had she chosen being straight 
could she choose being gay 
yes i could my mother said 
i didn’t know what to say to that
i didn’t know what she meant 
was that her coming out 
i was on the other side of the table 
we had eaten dinner 
she was putting food into tupperware
we never spoke again about 
anyone’s coming out
it is difficult for me at a table
now years later
i have eaten a bag of fibre
i want to lie face down
i met a man on grindr
who came out when he was forty
he said of that earlier time
i wondered is this all there is
i told him i had three sisters
he gave me a new toothbrush
i saw him take it out of the packet
i thought of all the toothbrushes
that were handed out before me
that line of gifted lovers 
ancestry that had become mine
i brushed my teeth put on my clothes
as if it was morning i thanked him
went home and made dinner
i wondered what my mother would do
if she was making this meal
how much salt she would add
how much turmeric
chili powder garlic ginger
i’m always surprised when people say
i don’t eat garlic
how can you not eat garlic
if we heard such a statement
me and my mother 
we would look to each other 
what kind of life must it be
what possibility for pleasure
what shame 
what terrible shame
it would be not to have
what made for so much joy

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AMAAN HYDER is the author of At Hajj (Penned in the Margins, 2017).