BEWARE THE WIRE MONKEYS

Not to get all Emo on you, but...

Killer Joe dumped me a couple weeks ago. It came as quite a surprise; I had thought things were going really well between us, and even dared to hope he might finally move in with me.

Nope.

It started when he decided he’d bring me a Christmas tree.

He showed up with a tiny potted pine. Not even a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, more like a table arrangement.

“What the hell is that, a corsage?” I asked him.

“You can plant it,” he said.

“Where in the cold wintry earth shall I plant it?”

It struck me as more and more ridiculous the more I looked at it.

“That’s not a Christmas tree, that’s a junkie disappointing his family on the holidays again,” I said, and I saw Joe stifle a laugh.

Ten minutes later we were standing on the porch.

“I love you, but I’m not in love with you,” he said, with his trademark dispassion.

“Oooww,” I whispered for a moment.

Then I looked at him. “‘Nuff said,” I said, and walked into the house.

He left.

That was it, really. We went from talking every day to not talking at all.

This throw me into all kinds of chaos, since he’s been subsidizing half my living space — literally the most generous thing anyone has ever done for me. (Although he was originally supposed to move in, and got cold feet, and then, being the good Catholic boy he was supposed to be, took care of me anyway.)

I cried my guts out for a day, and then I realized I wasn’t really in love with him either. That was, in fact, exactly why I had been dating him. All my life I had fallen biochemically in love with narcissists and sociopaths. I didn’t feel that hazardous oxytocin with Joe — I thought my lack of euphoria would enable me to learn how to love differently, and love people who didn’t ultimately just want to put my head on a plaque on their trophy wall.

Joe was a great fuckin’ guy. The best I’ve known, really. He sat in the waiting area all six hours of my tattoo, just to be there.

Cold as a drowned Norwegian corpse, but absolutely upstanding.

The heartbreak ended for me when I realized that we’d been dating nearly 2 years and had not a single running joke together. Joe’s not a big laugher. He’s a very serious healer and warrior, he didn’t have time for the giggling adolescent hooligan in me, or indulge in the flirty, jokey banter I crave. A doctor recently told me that not laughing together is relationship death and actually unhealthy. We didn’t laugh much.

Joe’s a lecturer, not a conversationalist, but full of amazing historical and subcultural facts.

Not much connective tissue, on the emotional front.

“I feel like emotionally, I give you buckets of gold, and I get $4 back from you in coupons,” I told him recently. It was one of the few times he laughed.

Cold as a penguin’s tit, but a prince all the same.

Fare thee well, my Aspy brother Joe. We didn’t click, but we flickered

“CALLAS/TURANDOT” oil on Canvas, Cintra Wilson 2025

I’ve been thinking a lot about that sociological study, the Harlow Monkey Experiments, conducted by psychologist Harry Harlow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, starting in 1958. The study took baby primates from their mothers. One was fed by a wire monkey exoskeleton covered with foam rubber and terrycloth, and another was raised by just a wire structure of a monkey. The study was notorious for its cruelty, but eventually discovered that touch and affection was necessary for the primate baby to thrive — without it they became terrified and neurotic.

I’m starting to realize that my entire life has been one wire monkey entanglement after another. I’m starting to wonder if anyone has ever actually loved me. I’ve been estranged from my family for 2 years, because I have toxic shock syndrome now. I’ve had well over my limit of toxic experiences. All my blood will turn to tar and I will die now. The estrangement is, frankly, the nicest thing I’ve ever done for myself, but the loneliness is tough, especially around the holidays when your boyfriend coldly announces he’s not in love with you.

I really admire my sister, and her family. There is so much love in their world. Her kids are so madly adored. It shows me that there is such an emotional currency — I just haven’t traded in it. I’m on the wrong frequency. I don’t have the right tokens. I keep being dazzled by the light glinting on the wire monkey scaffolding.

I’ve given up a lot trying to keep my art going. I just couldn’t conceive of doing anything else. I frittered away all my financial security on my art habit. Joe mentioned that he was not in love with me because I am too financially screwed up. Some people don’t think art is a real job, and they’re right, but it is a vocation. I have died on this hill many times. I die on it daily. This is my windmill, this is my lance. I am dying, but fuck that windmill. If you’re an artist, you know you’re a fucking artist until your dying breath and you don’t give that up without a fight.

Capitalism has swallowed life whole now, and those of us in greasepaint and leotards are confined to the slums. Computers do it better now, they say. My old writing partner told me that Paul Schrader, the great screenwriter, told him that he threw a few prompts into an AI and it spit out the greatest screenplay he had ever seen.

But I understand I am healing, in order to invite a different bandwidth into my life. I’m getting my vibes tighter. Perhaps I will eventually meet someone who, as the kids say now, will “match my energy.” Perhaps not. I’m cool either way.

You hit a certain age, it’s impossible not to feel like a Christmas tree in March, but I do believe it is always possible to get entirely lost in flowers.

I’m heading back into the art nunnery, now. I’m ok in there. Nothing can’t be helped by throwing a little paint on it. I’m plotting a serious linseed oil binge.

I deserve better. Until then, I’m thriving, motherfuckers. Watch this bitch do some ninja shit. I’ma kick the bit out a pit pony’s mouth. Love can always happen.

Cintraw@gmail.com

Theme song: Jack Black!