Black and white photo of a fine line script tattoo reading be still with a small cross, on the inner wrist.

Be still script tattoo on the wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a black script tattoo reading "be still" with a small cross after it, placed on the inner wrist. The letters have thin, even linework with little shading, and the tattoo is the only mark on the skin. The image is in black and white, with the wrist and a white sleeve cuff filling the frame against a grey background.

Lettering Fine line Forearm Script Cross Word

Find an artist for this

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

Sit down, the lot of you, and stop fidgeting, because the river will not hurry for you and neither will I. This is about Mabel Okonedo, who poled the last bread across the flooded Vauxhall in the years when the water rose through the cellars and the bells of St Mary's rang somewhere under the surface. Her skiff was a patched thing with a plank of ash nailed across the stern, and on that plank her mother had painted two words and a small cross, in letters so thin you had to lean in to read them.

Keep reading

One grey morning a boy called Tomas climbed onto the gunwale to chase a gull, and the boat tipped toward the black water. The passengers shrieked and grabbed for each other's coats. Mabel did not shout. She laid one hand flat on the ash plank, the way you might calm a horse, and said, 'Be still.' The boat settled. The water beneath it smoothed like cloth being pressed, and the gull, which had been so bold a moment before, lifted off and went away.

The passengers thought the words were a charm. Mabel knew better. Her mother had painted them the winter her father sank off the Lambeth steps, when there was nothing left to say except the one thing that kept the hands from shaking on the oars. She said them to herself every crossing after that, and eventually the boat learned to listen.

When the tide turns and you feel your own boat rocking, lay your hand on something solid and say it. Then wait, as Mabel did, until the surface goes flat enough to see the spire underneath, standing where it always stood.