The contemporary British poet Patience Agbabi first published "Eat Me" in her 2008 collection Bloodshot Monochrome. The speaker in the poem is a woman trapped in an abusive relationship. Her male partner, obsessed with fat women, feeds her incessantly, and the speaker becomes dependent on him for her one brief "pleasure" in life: the "rush of fast food." Eventually, she becomes so big that she is able to suffocate her partner with her own body, freeing her from his control. The poem highlights the emotional complexity and slow violence of domestic abuse, as well as the dehumanizing power of sexist objectification.

• Read the full text of “Eat Me”

• “Eat Me” Summary

• “Eat Me” Themes

  • 

    Sexism, Objectification, and Dehumanization

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 7-9
    • Lines 10-12
    • Lines 13-24
  • 

    Power, Abuse, and Control

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-30

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Eat Me”

  • Lines 1-3

    When I hit ...
    ... stone in weight.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

  • Lines 4-6

    The icing was ...
    ... even taste it.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

  • Lines 7-9

    Then he asked ...
    ... like a juggernaut.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

  • Lines 10-12

    The bigger the ...
    ... masses of cellulite.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

  • Lines 13-15

    I was his ...
    ... like forbidden fruit.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

  • Lines 16-18

    His breadfruit. His ...
    ... craving a wave.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

  • Lines 18-21

    I was a ...
    ... chubby, cuddly, big-built.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

  • Lines 22-24

    The day I ...
    ... down my throat.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

  • Lines 25-27

    Soon you’ll be ...
    ... dying sentence out.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

  • Lines 28-30

    I left him ...
    ... house to eat.

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

• “Eat Me” Symbols

  • 

    The Cake

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-6: “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.”

• “Eat Me” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where alliteration appears in the poem:

    • Line 8: “bed,” “broad”
    • Line 9: “belly,” “judder,” “juggernaut”
    • Line 10: “bigger the better”
    • Line 12: “multiple,” “masses”
    • Line 14: “fast food”
    • Line 15: “forbidden fruit”
    • Line 19: “full-fat”
    • Line 21: “big-built”
    • Line 23: “flesh,” “flesh flowed”
    • Line 24: “olive,” “oil”
    • Line 27: “drowned,” “dying”

  • Allusion

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where allusion appears in the poem:

    • Lines 4-5: “The icing was white but the letters were pink, / they said, eat me.”
    • Line 15: “his pleasure, to watch me swell like forbidden fruit.”

  • Assonance

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where assonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “home,” “made”
    • Line 3: “stone,” “weight”
    • Line 4: “icing,” “white”
    • Line 5: “eat me”
    • Line 9: “judder,” “juggernaut”
    • Line 11: “girls,” “burrow”
    • Line 15: “pleasure,” “swell”
    • Line 17: “whale”
    • Line 18: “craving,” “wave”
    • Line 19: “buy,” “pint”
    • Line 21: “chubby, cuddly,” “big,” “built”
    • Line 22: “stroke”
    • Line 23: “globe,” “flowed”
    • Line 24: “Open,” “throat”
    • Line 25: “Soon,” “you’ll”
    • Line 26: “roll,” “over,” “rolled”
    • Line 27: “drowned,” “out”
    • Line 28: “hours”
    • Line 29: “mouth”
    • Line 30: “house”

  • Asyndeton

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where asyndeton appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-3: “When I hit thirty, he brought me a cake, / three layers of icing, home-made, / a candle for each stone in weight.”
    • Line 9: “belly wobble, hips judder like a juggernaut.”
    • Lines 10-12: “The bigger the better, he’d say, I like / big girls, soft girls, girls I can burrow inside / with multiple chins, masses of cellulite.”
    • Lines 19-21: “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.”
    • Line 23: “His flesh, my flesh flowed.”
    • Line 24: “He said, Open wide, poured olive oil down my throat.”

  • Caesura

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where caesura appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “thirty, he”
    • Line 2: “icing, home-made”
    • Line 5: “said, eat,” “me. And,” “ate, did”
    • Line 6: “ told. Didn’”
    • Line 9: “wobble, hips”
    • Line 10: “better, he’d say, I”
    • Line 11: “girls, soft,” “girls, girls”
    • Line 12: “chins, masses”
    • Line 13: “Jacuzzi. But”
    • Line 15: “pleasure, to”
    • Line 16: “breadfruit. His”
    • Line 18: “wave. I”
    • Line 19: “leave, too”
    • Line 21: “chubby, cuddly, big-built”
    • Line 22: “thirty-nine, I”
    • Line 23: “cheek. His,” “flesh, my”
    • Line 24: “said, Open,” “wide, poured”
    • Line 25: “forty… he,” “whispered, and”
    • Line 26: “top. I”
    • Line 27: “flesh. I”
    • Line 29: “open, his”

  • Consonance

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where consonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 4: “white but,” “l,” “etters”
    • Line 5: “eat,” “ate”
    • Line 6: “what,” “Didn’t,” “taste it”
    • Line 8: “round,” “bed,” “could,” “broad”
    • Line 9: “belly wobble,” “judder,” “juggernaut”
    • Line 10: “bigger,” “better”
    • Line 11: “big girls,” “girls, girls”
    • Line 12: “multiple,” “masses”
    • Line 13: “was his Jacuzzi”
    • Line 14: “pleasure,” “rush,” “fast food”
    • Line 15: “pleasure,” “swell,” “forbidden fruit”
    • Line 18: “craving,” “wave,” “tidal,” “wave,” “flesh”
    • Line 19: “fat,” “pint,” “full-fat,” “ milk”
    • Line 21: “chubby,” “big-built”
    • Line 22: “stroke”
    • Line 23: “cheek,” “flesh,” “flesh flowed”
    • Line 24: “wide, poured,” “olive oil”
    • Line 26: “rolled,” “drowned”
    • Line 29: “slightly,” “bulging”
    • Line 30: “left,” “to eat”

  • End-Stopped Line

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where end-stopped line appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “cake,”
    • Line 3: “weight.”
    • Line 4: “pink,”
    • Line 6: “it.”
    • Line 9: “juggernaut.”
    • Line 12: “cellulite.”
    • Line 13: “cook,”
    • Line 14: “food,”
    • Line 15: “fruit.”
    • Line 16: “shipwreck.”
    • Line 19: “milk,”
    • Line 20: “shield,”
    • Line 21: “big-built.”
    • Line 23: “flowed.”
    • Line 24: “throat.”
    • Line 27: “out.”
    • Line 28: “week.”
    • Line 29: “greed.”
    • Line 30: “eat.”

  • Enjambment

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where enjambment appears in the poem:

    • Lines 5-6: “did / what”
    • Lines 7-8: “walk / round”
    • Lines 8-9: “broad / belly”
    • Lines 10-11: “like / big”
    • Lines 11-12: “inside / with”
    • Lines 17-18: “bed / craving”
    • Lines 18-19: “flesh / too”
    • Lines 22-23: “stroke / my”
    • Lines 25-26: “how / could”
    • Lines 26-27: “drowned / in”

  • Irony

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where irony appears in the poem:

    • Line 13: “I was his Jacuzzi. But he was my cook,”
    • Line 19: “too fat to buy a pint of full-fat milk,”
    • Lines 25-30: “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.”

  • Metaphor

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Line 11: “girls I can burrow inside”
    • Line 13: “I was his Jacuzzi. But he was my cook,”
    • Lines 16-18: “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”
    • Lines 22-23: “I allowed him to stroke / my globe of a cheek.”
    • Line 23: “His flesh, my flesh flowed.”

  • Parallelism

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where parallelism appears in the poem:

    • Line 13: “I was his Jacuzzi. But he was my cook,”
    • Lines 19-21: “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.”
    • Line 23: “His flesh, my flesh flowed.”

  • Repetition

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where repetition appears in the poem:

    • Line 10: “bigger”
    • Line 11: “big girls,” “girls,” “girls”
    • Line 14: “pleasure”
    • Line 15: “pleasure”
    • Line 16: “His,” “His”
    • Line 18: “wave,” “wave”
    • Line 19: “too fat to,” “too fat to,” “full-fat”
    • Line 20: “too fat to,” “fat”
    • Line 21: “too fat to”
    • Line 23: “flesh,” “flesh”
    • Line 26: “roll,” “rolled,” “drowned”
    • Line 27: “flesh,” “drowned”
    • Line 29: “His,” “his”

  • Simile

    

    

    

    

    Unlock with LitCharts A⁺

    Where simile appears in the poem:

    • Line 9: “hips judder like a juggernaut.”
    • Line 15: “to watch me swell like forbidden fruit.”

• “Eat Me” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Stone
  • Juggernaut
  • Judder
  • Burrow
  • Cellulite
  • Breadfruit
  • Beached
  • (Location in poem: Line 3: “a candle for each stone in weight”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Eat Me”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Eat Me” Speaker

• “Eat Me” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Eat Me”

• More “Eat Me” Resources

  • External Resources

    • Agbabi's Spoken-Word Poetry — Watch a video of Agbabi performing some of her poetry (and get a sense of her rhythmic spoken-word style).

    • A Short Biography — Learn more about Patience Agbabi, and hear a couple of her poems read aloud.

    • Agbabi in Conversation — The poet talks about her life and work.  

    • Agbabi on Writing — Listen to Agbabi discussing her writing process.

Cite This Page