Addressed to a "darling" who seems to want nothing more than to consume the speaker, the poem turns a toxic relationship into a scene of bodily horror. The opening line, "Eat my heart out," plays on a familiar phrase, but here it is almost literal. The speaker is tired of being picked at slowly and dares the lover to finish the job. Calling the earlier cruelty "murder's foreplay" suggests that the damage has been intimate and drawn out, a kind of teasing violence.
What the speaker feels seems to be a mix of exhaustion, bitter sarcasm, and defiance. There is no pleading. Instead the tone is cold and almost dryly mocking, especially in the image of ribs as a "chandelier." By the end, the speaker is no longer a person at all, only "objects of décor." The poem suggests being reduced to a thing to be displayed and admired. The mood is dark, grotesque, and eerily calm, and the title's "Object of Affection" lands as a grim irony.