i love you. i hate you. i want to eat you whole.

on cannibalism and how your secret hater might be closer than you think.

starting at the underarm of my t-shirt, i inhaled salt, dust, and tiny balls of cotton wedged between its seams. indeed, at the height of our coupling one could often find me at this meticulous juncture: that is, bent over my plastic hamper sniffing for traces of formaldehyde, biofresh, or any other chemical left behind from her dissection.

i am nothing if not a romantic, so we’ll call her Carmilla.

Carmilla fell in and out of my life on her whim, an inconsistent rhythm scoring years. i let her. if we fought and she demanded periods of silence, i prepared a bed fit for her untimely return. when she made an arrival on my doorstep, i provided her brisk access to me without question. so it was that her laugh reduced me to sugar water over an open fire, thick and pliable.

i became an exhausted animal at the center of her dinner table, skin boiling in the orange light, a pink-lady nuzzled in my gaping mouth.

the intimacy between two women who secretly hate each other remains unparalleled. moreover, these women are often ignorant of just how much they despise the other, if at all. neither static nor sterile, their dance is a sensual illusion. together, no statement between them goes unrecorded nor bodily change unremarked. the two beasts steep themselves in an erotic tea, eyes full of reverent lingering and warm surveillance— devoted.

Carmilla: my vampire. my leech. my scorpion, constructing her fortress of candy around my submission. i became fascinated by the ambiguity of her– the figuring-her-out– the confusion of whether her behavior indicated a wish to be proximal to, float inside of, or wear me like buffalo bill. her odd behavior was predictable– a promise whispering: yes you are my sister, but i will give you very little and take just enough.

making friends has been a straight-forward affair in my life. as a neurodivergent-minor in my youth, i clung to those who celebrated my peculiarities and accepted the many who discarded me by necessity. escaping most interactions with rejection, i developed key friend-group-curating skills through the experience. as an adult, i flourish. i’ve maintained relationships with people that keep to a strict code of honesty, cut-to-the-chase, and have many talents. i am in a unique position that i support all of my friends (especially those who are more talented than me) and they support me in return. whatever city i visit, i know i will have a place to sleep. simply put, i love friends and lack the social graces to understand petty jealousies.

much to my surprise, i fell upon the holy-shit-does-this-b*tch-actually-hate-me? dynamic in my early twenties.

Carmilla conducted her master’s thesis in the art of negging. we accumulated sour-patch-kid dualisms: the grumbling behind her chuckle. the deep breath in. the side eye. the grey, slated underbelly in the fashion of her speech, a creature playing hide and seek in positivity slop. soon, she became acutely post-nasal— an annoying flower, hanging over the sinus and onto my aimless tongue.

toward our end, i daydreamed her into positions where she would harm me directly, where i could finally confront her for something obvious. perhaps if she were a surgeon, she could empty me against a steel table or twist my entrails between her fingers or slurp me like cold noodles. but, i triple checked my car for leftover scalpels or exacto knives to no avail.

so. here’s how to identify your cannibal:

1. she has a stink-face: like a cat smelling something new, be aware of the micro expressions she makes when you talk. study her mouth– the beauty of it, the detail. admire the way her nose scrunches. in times where you succeed or surpass her, she may display a twinge behind her eye or a skip in her breath. there will be a tell if you pay attention.

2. she’s poison control: beyond popular belief, cannibals might be the first to jump to your aid. your cannibal will do so by pushing other resources (friends, partners, or known-comforts) away. the difference between a helpful friend and an eater (derogatory) is that she wants to assume the sole contribution to your healing. if she can be the antidote at every turn and corner— make you believe she knows you better than yourself— she will be able to consume you later.

3. she’s a fein for judgement: as much as i am a true hater, talking shit isn’t the only thing i know how to do. your cannibal will, without fail or pause, employ judgement as conversation starter, joke, or— defying the laws of physics— as a light to their cigarette when you go to the club. hating is her tenured position in life. if you spend way more time talking about people than things, be wary. she is judging you, too.

4. she wants your effing cookie: if she can claim a part of what makes you happy or successful, you will slowly become emaciated by her hand. this is almost better than eating you directly. if you’ve introduced her to a years-long friend, she might behave as if she knows more about them than you do. if you venture into doing yoga, she *suddenly* knows everything about it and has already decided it isn’t all that. the things you do feel small in her shine; you can’t get a word in. don’t explain this away: directing attention back to her makes her feel like she owns your life. remember, nothing is off limits– your friends, your hobbies, your identity, and sometimes your partner. whatever nourishes you, she wants a piece of that effing cookie.

   

5. oh, and she loves when you look emaciated btw: your cannibal gets a kick when you are low. she may suggest doing things against your better judgement. her advice will always seem off. this may look like engaging with you when something bad is going on— a fight with a partner, for example. but, if you resolve it she lacks gusto or congratulations. in short, she loves when you are triggered. she might even sow paranoia in your life to get you there. this makes her seem like the only authentic entity present. she is not.

women have the odds stacked against us. i wonder how so many of us support one another with the cards we are dealt. while Carmilla and i were, at best, homoerotic and, at the *very* worst, mildly abusive, i do not write this to demonize her. after all, Carmilla could be you. or me. or some other secret third person. i understand her appetite. i enjoyed being her meal.

misogyny {wompwomp} forces women to constrict expression, tally our aesthetic differences, and measure our worth by maintaining the male eye— even when there are none present. creating healthy female friendship takes an ass-load of unlearning and honesty. carl jung spoke about projection. ancestors warned of the evil eye. the romans said saturn devoured his son for fear of being overthrown. it’s not the nicest thing to acknowledge envy, competition, or resentment within ourselves. but, if we cannot maintain self awareness, we end up in a cycle of hurt and use.

though i am robbing Morrison’s writing of very important historical context (please read The Bluest Eye, for the love of god), this quote changed my life. it might be the rawest quote ever uttered:

“love is never any better than the lover. wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly… the lover alone possesses his gift of love. the loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover’s inward eye.” ― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

we need not label Carmilla’s pathology. we need not fear her, or tie her to the stake. sometimes love can be lazy or silly or vile. and, in my oxymoronic worldview, sometimes love can be hateful in the hands of a few. we can only control where we decide to spend our time, and there can be no excuse for cohabitation with someone cannibalizing you– not even if it’s your dearest friend.

i’m taking my run in with a cannibal as luck. although i took a while to realize her unhealthy impact on me, she developed my value system. she showed me my weak points. she became those LED car-lights we all hate, blinding me into the realization that i needed better window tint (idfk anything about cars, just ignore that one.)

to recognize a cannibal, we have to make room that we can be one, too. Carmilla might have liked to boil my blood and suck me dry, but i bathed in the soup pot. i co-signed our competition. i became complicit in my dismemberment. i chose to drain my lymph— to rip crowns off my teeth– to chew on the corners of my cheeks and nails just to take up as little space as necessary. and, though i wouldn’t like to admit it, i even liked the taste.

i still cherish our time together, where we only concerned ourselves with a visceral push and pull– the bending over one another– the swing dancing in the kitchen– the sinking of our canines into neck and breast and eardrum, blood blending into one stream. i hope, one day, we might sit at the table as equals. until then, i honor our last supper: red. insatiable. wet.