Creativity rarely announces itself —
it clocks in quietly, takes a seat at the back,
rereads old notes, crosses things out,
stares at a wall that looks towards nothing,
and waits for the mind to stop performing.

It prefers rooms with dim lighting,
afternoons that drag, mornings without conviction.
It appears when enthusiasm has tapered off,
when the blaze has dropped to embers,
when no one is watching for ignition.

There are long stretches of apparent nothing,
drafts that collapse, ideas reduced to ash,
hours spent tending what will not yet flame.
This is not failure or delay —
it’s fervour gathering below the surface.

Fireworks are brief negotiations with attention,
they combust loudly, scorch the sky, vanish.
Creativity is a log in a hearth —
dense, resistant, slow to catch,
warming the room long after night falls.

It burns by staying, not by flaring,
by returning to the same fire again and again.
Combustion happens in layers;
outer bark blackening, cores softening,
structure melting into usable heat.

There are moments it feels like an inferno —
burning, blazing, slightly dangerous,
moments it feels like a wildfire,
moving without permission or timetable,
alchemising the landscape as it passes through.

But most of the time it is quieter than that:
embers glowing under a skin of ash,
a steady sun you can’t photograph,
a burn that asks for patience, not applause,
a fire that knows how to last, to stay.