Personal Madrigal

//harika kottakota

From the jingle of maroon bangles
Static hollers of late-night aficionados   
Crumbling lego battalions
Piano proteges in the making   
To alley dogs barking into oblivion
Time orchestrates daily timbres
This personal madrigal beckons  
8 a.m. light to strike crusted eyelids
Some exorcism retrieves my spirit
From abysmal sleep, yet again
I succumb to living —
Dolor, euphoria, and every inter-tenor
Lurking behind the keyhole, upon  
Groaning wood, aged ricotta, granite
My gait eases into iambs

//Harika Kottakota is currently a junior at Burbank High School, striving into the literary scene. Harika has a passion for reading poetry of all kinds while sipping chai. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Canvas Literary Journal, Whirlwind Magazine, JUST Poetry, and Right Hand Pointing. She is currently a poetry editor for The Platinum Journal and a poetry reader for The Glass Kite Anthology.