Black and grey realistic orchids with flowing script lettering across an upper arm and shoulder tattoo.

Black and grey orchids with script on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows several orchid blooms rendered in soft, detailed shading, with one large flower near the centre and smaller buds around it. Handwritten script runs between the flowers, with the word Love standing out in larger letters. The shading is black and grey, with smooth gradients on the petals and a textured background behind the lettering, and the design wraps across the shoulder and upper arm.

Realism Botanical Lettering Upper arm Shoulder Orchid Flower Script Lettering Love Bud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marion,

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The orchid on the windowsill has finally given up its third flush of flowers, and I've decided not to throw it out. You'd laugh. You always said I'd kill anything that couldn't shout at me, and you were right about the geraniums. But this one came from the garden centre on Thornley Road the week the lift broke for the fourth time, and I felt I owed it something.

Mr Okafor from fourteen came up on Sunday with a cutting he'd rooted in a jam jar, wanting to know whether his bloom would ever open. I told him patience, which he didn't want to hear, and then we stood on the balcony like two idiots watching the bin lorry take an age to turn into the car park. He asked after you. I said you were in Leeds now, with the sea a bus ride away, and he said that sounded like a proper life. I didn't argue.

The card you pushed under the door before you left is still tucked into the frame of the hall mirror, the one with the line you copied out of that old song. You know the one, about how you only know you love someone when you fall. I used to think it was soppy. Now I think it's just accurate, the sort of thing you only notice when you're carrying shopping up twelve flights because the lift has decided to retire.

Come at Easter. Bring the good scissors and we'll deal with the orchid together. Then I'll tell you what the flowers actually want, which is less water than we give them and more of us in the room.

Love, Jean