It's Still Life

The Architecture of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes
A Liturgy for Vantablack — The Colour That Is Not a Colour

I. Of Absence
This is not a colour, but a hunger—
a surface so deep even light forgets itself.

Its texture is velvet without body,
warmth without heat,
the shade where memory waits
before being born again.

II. Of Perception
To look upon it is to feel
the moment before sight—
a threshold where everything vanishes.

You are not looking at a thing;
it is looking back at you,
finding a similar, beautiful void.

It is the pupil of the universe,
absorbing every secret
we are too bright to see.

III. Of Warnings
Do not mistake this absorption for peace.
This is not the soft dark of rest,
but the absolute quiet
of a breath held too long.

Some are seduced by such nothingness,
believing they can hide their own light in it.
But one cannot live
in a mouth that only swallows.

IV. Of Potential
Remember—what looks like nothing
is everything learning to hide.

It is the pigment of creation’s pause,
the breath before the universe spoke.

A star could weep its fiery heart here
and make no more impression
than a thought—
yet the seed of every colour
waits in that single, silent note.

V. The Reveal
May your darknesses be fertile, not final.
May your voids be beginnings in deep disguise.