Fine line black script tattoo reading awake my soul with a swash underline, on the side of the ribcage, in a black and white photo.

Awake my soul script on the side ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A thin black script tattoo reads awake my soul, with a long looping swash extending beneath the words. The linework is fine and even, and the ink is solid black with no shading. The photo is greyscale, with a raised arm and fingers at the top edge and a chevron patterned fabric behind the skin.

Fine line Lettering Ribs Word Script Swash Text

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bell at the lifeboat house has been ringing for six minutes before you find your boots, and by then the gulls are already up off the slipway, shouting at nothing. Your mother is at the window with the kettle still in her hand. Tom's bunk is empty. His oilskin is gone from the hook by the door, and the tide table you pinned to the wall last week has a thumbprint of tar across Thursday.

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You run down Fore Street with the cobbles slick and the lamps still lit, past the chandler's shutters and the chapel board that still reads Hymn 42 from Sunday. Someone has chalked a name on the harbour wall, and you do not stop to read it. The water beyond the wall is the colour of pewter and it is moving the wrong way for a boy in a small boat, and you know it the way you know your own name.

At the slip the crew are already shoving the lifeboat down the rollers. Bessie Carne, who taught you to tie a bowline, shouts your name and points past the breakwater. There is a small light out there, bobbing, and then it isn't. You hear yourself say his name, not loudly, the way you would wake someone sleeping in the next room, and you put your hand on the cold rail and climb in.

Later, when the sun comes up flat and grey over the harbour and the boat is tied at the steps, Tom sits wrapped in a foil blanket, coughing up seawater and swearing at the crew for making such a fuss. You sit beside him and do not tell him what you said in the dark, which was only the line your grandmother sang over the washing-up: awake, my soul, and the rest of the morning is yours.