Eat Me
Eat Me
When I hit
thirty. He brought me a cake,
Three layers of
icing, home –made,
A candle for
each stone in weight.
The icing was
white but the letters were pink.
They said, eat
me. And I ate, did
What I was
told. Didn’t even taste it.
Then he asked me
to get up and walk
Round the bed
so he could watch my broad
Belly wobble,
hips judder like a juggernaut.
The bigger the
better, he’d say, I like
Big girls, soft
girls, girls I can burrow inside
With multiple
chins, masses of cellulite.
I was his Jacuzzi.
But he was my cook
My only
pleasure the rush of fast food.
His pleasure,
to watch me sell like forbidden fruit.
His breadfruit.
His desert island after shipwreck.
Or a beached
whale on a king-size bed
Craving a
wave. I was a tidal wave of flesh
Too fat to
leave, too fat to buy a pint of full-fat milk,
Too fat to use
fat as an emotional shield,
Too fat to be
called chubby, cuddly, big-built.
The day I hit
thirty-nine, I allowed him to stroke
My globe of a
cheek. His flesh, my flesh flowed.
He said, open
wide, poured olive oil down my throat.
Soon you’ll be
forty…. He whispered, and how
Could I not
roll over on top. I rolled and he
drowned
In my flesh. I
drowned his dying sentence out.
I left him
there for six hours that felt like a week.
His mouth
slightly open, his eyes bulging with greed.
There was
nothing else left in the house to eat.
Patience Agbabi's
Summary
The
poem is about a woman who has been trapped in a false relationship with her
boyfriend. It is about extremely a fake relationship
based on food and commanding. The poem
shows the boy’s overpower to his girlfriend.
For his satisfaction he forces her to become big in appearance. He is pleased to see her becoming fat. He doesn’t care about her health. All he wants his pleasures to be satisfied. The poem ends with the girl who eats
everything and suffocating him to start her new life.
Detail analysis
Stanza 1
“When I hit thirty. He brought me a cake,
Three layers of icing, home –made,
A candle for each stone in weight.”
The poet starts
with a birthday celebration where the unnamed girl celebrates her 30th
birthday. Her boyfriend brought a
homemade cake but the candles placed there to point out the weight of the girl
not the age.
Stanza 2
“The icing was white but the letters were pink.
They said, eat me. And I ate, did
What I was told. Didn’t even taste it.”
The poet says
it is a white frosting cake and the letters in pink say eat me. So the girl without delay eats the whole
without enjoying the taste of it. She
just eats the whole cake.
Stanza 3
“Then he asked me to get up and walk
Round the bed so he could watch my broad
Belly wobble, hips judder like a juggernaut.”
The
weird behaviour of the boyfriend is revealed here. He wants to enjoy the shaped of his
girlfriend. He asks her to get and walk
so that he can have a full view of her figure.
Her broad belly wobbling up and down, her hips shakes like a big truck
Stanza 4
The bigger the better, he’d say, I like
Big girls, soft girls, girls I can burrow inside
With multiple chins, masses of cellulite.
The poet
through the conversation between them brings out the vulgar quality of the
boyfriend. He says he likes big fat
girls for they are soft with heavy cheeks and multiple chins.
Stanza 5
“I was his Jacuzzi. But he was my cook
My only pleasure the rush of fast food.
His pleasure, to watch me sell like forbidden fruit.”
In this stanza
the girl expresses her agony for her boyfriend who is a selfish, merciless
person. For him she is warm and his
comforting bathtub. He feeds her. Her only job is to gobble whatever he gives
to her to eat. He enjoys to see the girl
getting fatter every days. It’s just
like waiting to see the fruit.
Stanza 6
His breadfruit. His desert island after shipwreck.
Or a beached whale on a king-size bed
Craving a wave.
I was a tidal wave of flesh”
She is like a
breadfruit, or a desert island to land on after a shipwreck to him. It is like a whale who lost his way to shore
and waiting for waves to come back to take it back. She is like a tidal wave but made of
flesh. It is just a cruel view on the
girl. Male dominance is well brought out
here.
Stanza 7
“Too fat to leave, too fat to buy a pint of full-fat
milk,
Too fat to use fat as an emotional shield,
Too fat to be called chubby, cuddly, big-built.”
The pathetic
condition of the girl is brought out here.
She is too fate to escape, she is too fat to go out to buy a pint of
full fat milk. She can’t use her shape
to protect herself. Now she has become
quite ugly to be called as chubby, cuddly.
For she is too fat and gives a ugly appearance. She is forced to become ugly by her boyfriend
for his own pleasures.
Stanza 8
“The day I hit thirty-nine, I allowed him to stroke
My globe of a cheek.
His flesh, my flesh flowed.
He said, open wide, poured olive oil down my throat.”
The poet says
when the girl becomes thirty she allows her partner to touch her huge round
cheek. Their flesh merged together. He told her to open her mouth and poured the
olive oil to drink. He wants her to be
fatter.
Stanza 9
Soon you’ll be forty…. He whispered, and how
Could I not roll over on top. I rolled and he drowned
In my flesh. I drowned his dying sentence out.
Once again the
boy makes a worst, intolerable comment.
He says that the girl would be forty soon. The girl could not control herself and burst
her agony on him by rolling over him and he suffocates due to her weight. She and her fat flesh could feel the dying
words of him. She could not take any
more. Her pain comes out.
Stanza 10
“I left him there for six hours that felt like a week.
His mouth slightly open, his eyes bulging with greed.
There was nothing else left in the house to eat.”
She left him
there dead for six hours. His mouth was
open, his eyes are bulging with desires.
There was nothing left to eat in the house. All over and she expects a new future.
Poetical devices
Beauty one of the most wanted by the society. It has been seen in a different perspective
in this poem. Beauty has been sabotaged
due to ones greed.
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