Cannibalism as a Metaphor for Love | personal essay
You Ate Me Wrong: On Love, Hunger, and Consumption
I think I’ve wanted to eat every person I’ve ever loved.
Not literally. Not even sexually, but I suppose there’s always some of that tangled in the teeth of desire. I mean emotionally. Mythologically. Like if I could just open my mouth wide enough, I could consume them—memories, bones, tired voice on a bad day, the way their face looks when they’re brushing their teeth and don’t know anyone’s watching. I’ve loved people like I was starving. Like I didn’t know the difference between affection and appetite. Like touch was a form of chewing.
I say this without shame, but not without grief.
I’ve always thought love felt like hunger. That fluttery, aching, irrational kind. The kind that doesn’t care whether it’s appropriate or logical or reciprocated. It just gnaws. And when the person finally turns toward you—smiling, speaking, moving—you want to swallow it all. The way they roll their sleeves. The nicknames only their mother uses. The chipped phone case. You want to know everything. Touch everything. Archive them in your mouth so nothing can ever rot or leave.
But not all love is sacred. Some of it tears. Some of it chews with its mouth open.
Zombies terrify me. Not because of the gore, but because of the speed. The thoughtlessness. The frenzied way they rip people apart without even looking. Without knowing. That’s the part that always unsettled me — the idea that someone could be consumed by something that doesn’t even see them. You become just meat. A shape. A scream. A red blur. And sharks, too, in media — their open jaws like hollow tunnels, their glassy eyes, the complete indifference with which they devour. It’s not hatred. It’s worse. It’s nothing.
I’ve been loved like that before.
Some people love like zombies. They don’t ask your name. They just need to feed. They take and tear and don’t remember what they swallowed. They love you in pieces. They don’t taste you. They don’t know what they’ve bitten into. And some people — you realize too late—are sharks. They circle first. They’re smooth. Charming, even. But when they strike, it’s not personal. It’s just instinct. Hunger without respect.
I’ve always wanted to be consumed. But not like that.
There’s a thin line between love and violence. Between being devoured and being destroyed. And I think what scares me most is how close the two can feel. How easy it is to mistake someone’s teeth for tenderness.
When I say I want to be eaten, I mean I want to be known. I want someone to savor me. To choose me the way you choose a meal you’ve been craving for days. I want to be remembered on the tongue. I want them to close their eyes when they bite — not because it’s grotesque, but because it’s holy.
We say things like “I could just eat you up,” or “You’re so cute I want to bite you.” We call lovers “sweetheart” and “honey” and “snack.” We joke about being addicted to someone’s scent, their skin, their soul. But underneath the jokes is something ancient. Something almost sacred. Communion, after all, is just holy cannibalism. This is my body. This is my blood. Swallow me. Remember me. Carry me inside you so I never have to leave.
But not all consumption is the same.
Vampires, for instance — also terrifying, also intimate—but different. Vampires take just enough to survive. They return to the same body again and again. They sip. They linger. There’s seduction in that. A drawn-out need. An addictive rhythm. Some people love like that — draining you slowly, always coming back, but never quite killing you. Never full. Never gone. Just… feeding.
I’m not sure which is worse: being devoured in one bite, or being drained drop by drop until you barely notice you’re dying.
And then, there’s the history.
Some cultures practiced cannibalism not out of violence, but reverence. They ate the flesh of their dead not to desecrate them, but to mourn them. To keep them close. To make their death matter. A final act of love. A ritual of grief. A way to ensure the beloved could never truly leave.
There’s something devastating and beautiful in that.
I wonder sometimes if that’s all I’ve ever wanted — to be held like something sacred enough to swallow. To be remembered by being absorbed. To never be let go because someone chose to carry me in their body.
But when women hunger, it’s different. Messier. Shameful. Girls aren’t taught to bite. We’re taught to be the meal. To be palatable. Consumable. Digestible. Easy to love and easier to leave. We’re told that wanting too much — of anything, really — is unbecoming. Emotional hunger is “clingy.” Sexual hunger is “slutty.” Romantic hunger is “crazy.” You’re not supposed to ache. You’re supposed to smile, say “I’m full, thank you,” and pretend you’ve never been starving.
I’ve always been starving.
There was a boy once. I loved him so hard I stopped recognizing myself. I didn’t want to hold his hand — I wanted to unzip his body like a winter coat and climb inside his chest. I wanted to hide under his skin like his heartbeat. I wanted to bury myself into the soft place behind his eyes so I could watch the world with him forever. I didn’t want a relationship. I wanted possession. To possess or be possessed — it didn’t really matter. I just wanted to stop being outside of him.
And I felt ashamed of that. I still do, sometimes. But I also think it was honest. Love makes beasts of us, or ghosts. Sometimes both.
It’s not always the eater who is dangerous. Sometimes the danger is how badly we want to be eaten. To let someone chew through us, erase us, swallow us down until there’s nothing left but the sound of their breath. Devotion is a kind of self-erasure. To be so fully taken in that you forget where your own body ends.
I have wanted that. I still do.
But I wonder — what happens after you’ve been eaten?
After the hunger’s gone, do people carry you in their body like warmth? Like nourishment? Like something that mattered? Or do they spit and shit you out, forget you entirely, treat you like something they swallowed on the way to something else?
Is memory a stomach or a freezer?
Do we digest the people we love — or preserve them in pieces?
I’ve realized some people never really let you stay inside them. They chewed through you fast, and all you became was an aftertaste they never think about. But there are others—rare ones—who remember your texture. Who flinch when they taste something familiar. Who carry you in their bloodstream even if they never say it.
I think I’d rather be remembered than forgiven.
I want to be consumed like a slow-cooked meal, not a panicked snack.
And not all hunger is honest.
Some people are starving and will eat anything. They’ll bite into you not because they like the taste, but because you’re there. Because you’re soft. Because you’re warm. Because they haven’t eaten in a while and they’ve forgotten what real hunger even feels like.
I’ve been loved like that. And I’ve loved like that too.
There’s a difference between craving someone and actually liking who they are. Between appetite and taste. Some people want to consume you just to fill the silence inside them. But others? Others want to savor you. To know the layers. To recognize the difference between you and everyone else they could’ve chosen.
I don’t want to be anyone’s survival instinct. I want to be their desire. Chosen, not convenient.
And love, I think, is also about pacing.
There are slow chewers. People who learn you one bite at a time. Who pause between courses. Who let you rest in their mouth before they speak.
And there are gulpers. People who want everything now. Who love in a panic. Who swallow first and figure out who you were later. Not because they mean harm — but because they’ve confused urgency for devotion.
I’ve been with both. I’ve been both.
Hunger can make you greedy. It can make you forget that the person in front of you is not food. They’re a body. A name. A story.
And love? Real love? Isn’t about getting full. It’s about learning how to feed and be fed.
Media knows this hunger. Hannibal, with its elegant, erotic cannibalism, doesn’t even hide the metaphor. To eat someone is to know them utterly. To absorb their essence. It’s disturbing — but it’s also the most intimate act imaginable. Myths have long understood this. Saturn devouring his son. Obsession. Power. Fear. We fear what we love. We destroy what we birth. We eat what we can’t hold.
Even fanfiction, romance tropes, horror stories—they flirt with this idea all the time. “I want to be inside you.” “I want you to be mine.” They mean sex, yes — but also something more. Something we’re not allowed to say plainly: I want to obliterate the boundary between us. I want no separation. I want to take you in so completely you stop being other.
I think about the people I’ve loved and wonder if I ate them wrong. Or if they ate me without knowing what I was made of.
And I still love. I still hunger. But now I know the difference between a sacred bite and a shark attack. Between communion and carnage.
I don’t mind being eaten. I just want it to mean something.
I want the kind of love that pays attention. That doesn’t rush. That doesn’t confuse possession with care, or appetite with intimacy. I want someone to know me before they claim me. I want to be chosen, not devoured out of desperation.
Because the truth is, I’ve been loved carelessly before. I’ve been treated like something to fill a gap, not something to understand. I’ve been swallowed and forgotten. Bitten into and blamed for bleeding.
So if you’re going to love me— if you’re going to consume me — do it slowly. Know what you’re taking. Know what you’re holding. And if you can’t do that, don’t touch me at all.
I’m not afraid of hunger. I’m afraid of being eaten by someone who doesn’t even taste me.