[Submission] "Love me. Eat"
This idea, that the lover must take all of you, your violence, your hunger, your need, is what binds Bones and All to Twilight, [...]
“Love me. Eat” by Robyn McKinson
There is a thin line between hunger and desire. A mouth opens not only to speak, but to kiss, to bleed, and to eat.
Bella Swan and Maren Yearly, in The Twilight Saga (2008-2012) and Bones and All (2022), are not simply coming of age; they are being devoured, and learning to devour in return. What they hunger for isn’t just love—it’s something totalising, something that crosses the threshold of the body: into blood, into meat, into myth. To be loved, in their worlds, is to be consumed.
Twilight places us in the state of Washington, under a near constant cover of clouds and rain in a small town named Forks. There, Bella meets Edward Cullen. What he thirsts for, of course, is her blood, but more than that, he longs to protect her and to deny the part of himself that wants to consume her entirely. And Bella, for her part, wants to be consumed. Not merely by love, but by something that will leave her changed, permanently: to become both immortal and remain unconditionally and irrevocably in love.
In this way, Twilight dramatises a familiar longing—but dares to eroticise it through monstrosity. Bella is not repelled by Edward’s hunger for her; she is drawn to it. Bella’s desire is not passive; it is active and deliberate. Her desire to be turned into a vampire is not only about eternal love but about realising a version of herself that has been waiting to emerge. Unlike many heroines of teen fiction, Bella doesn’t resist change. She runs straight towards it. The bite becomes a rite of passage, a symbolic death and rebirth. To be with Edward is to lose her humanity, but for Bella, that loss is a kind of liberation. She does not want to be protected from monstrosity; she wants to become it. “My time as a human is over, but I've never felt more alive. I was born to be a vampire.” Bella says in Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012). “Everything was falling into place.”
Maren Yearly, unlike Bella, does not choose her hunger. It is something she is. Her appetite isolates her. After being abandoned by her father, she travels through rural America seeking others like her, and learning how to survive. When she meets Lee, the story moves from one of survival to one of recognition. Together, they navigate love alongside hunger and tenderness alongside violence.
The cannibalism in Bones and All is grotesque, but in other ways it is tender. The film does not shy away from the horror of what these characters do, but it also does not condemn them. Their acts of consumption are driven by need, not cruelty. A kiss turns into a bite. A body becomes sustenance. And yet, through this physicality, something deeply emotional emerges. This hunger is not just for flesh. It is for connection, for touch, for belonging.
“When he held me, everything had melted away, everything dark and ugly and rotten inside of me. Lee had made me pure. He’d let me do it.” Maren’s confession reveals the paradox at theheart of her desire and their relationship. She is not redeemed by overcoming her hunger, but by being loved through it. Lee does not recoil from her hunger; when the time comes, he embraces it, offering himself completely. “I want you to do it. This was always going to be it.” Lee said. “Love me. Eat.” In Lee’s arms, her monstrosity is not a curse to be hidden or denied—it is held, accepted, made whole and even sacred. He does not save her from herself, he gives her permission to exist. Love does not cure her appetite, but it gives it meaning.
This idea, that the lover must take all of you, your violence, your hunger, your need, is what binds Bones and All to Twilight, even as the two films differ in tone and execution. In both, to be loved is to risk being consumed, and for the girls at their centres, becoming a woman means learning to live with your appetite. In their hunger and their desire, these young women are neither victims nor villains. They are agents of their own becoming.
To be loved in these worlds is to be known fully and embraced—monstrousness and all. Their mouths open not just to speak, but to kiss, to bleed, and to eat. What links them is not just a taste for blood. It is that love, for them, is not a gentle thing. It is not clean or safe. It is ravenous.
This short essay was submitted to the White Lily Society for the limited time submission prompt “vampire girlfriend”
Robyn (@robynmcki on Instagram) is a 21yo recent UAL grad and aspiring film programmer/curator based in London. She recently curated a screening event of lesbian vampire short films for London Short Film Festival.
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