You’re a Mad Cow
by Brandt Dirmeyer

grazing for years without symptom
zombies try to place thoughts
in your head, opinions of society
and cannibal cultures of our past
and present — like prions, not alive
but alive, reproduction by influence
replicating themselves in the brain
through consumption of the dead

As a child, Brandt Dirmeyer spent his time outdoors wanting to be a paleontologist and nature photographer. As a teenager, his father taught him an ideology of extraterrestrial beings of universal good and evil. As a young adult, he was confused and reclusive, reading about Buddha and the existentialists. Now, as a burgeoning adult, he reflects to make sense of it all.