Black and white photo of a woman's bare back with arms raised, showing a fine line cursive script lettering tattoo on her left shoulder blade.

Cursive script quote across a back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph shows a woman seen from behind with both arms raised and her hands resting on her head, so her face is hidden by her hair. A fine, dark cursive script of several lines sits over the shoulder blade on the left side of her back, and the text is only partly legible at this size. The soft lighting and plain grey backdrop keep the focus on the tattoo and the curve of the back.

Lettering Fine line Back Script Text Quote Woman Hand Blonde hair

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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

You learn the road out of Tarrow Flats by its mile markers, which count down instead of up, as if the desert is keeping a tally of what you owe it. The air con gave up at Haddon Wells, so the windows are down and the heat pours in like a dog that wants the passenger seat. Your father's card is still tucked behind the sun visor, soft at the corners, his capitals pressed hard enough to dent the card. It says what it has said since you were nine: some things you cannot change, so ask for the nerve to change the rest and the sense to tell them apart.

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Thirty miles on, a tyre starts to sing. You pull onto the shoulder beside a dead cactus and a rusted sign for a diner that shut before you were born. Kneeling in the grit, you find the nail, long and bright, and think about the wedding you were supposed to reach by six, the phone with no signal, the fuel gauge sulking on E. You cannot make the nail leave. You can only decide whether to swear at it.

So you swear, then you laugh, then you jack the truck up with the handle that wobbles. A farmer in a flatbed slows, offers a spare he doesn't need, asks you nothing, and drives on when you wave him off. The wind turns and carries the smell of rain that never arrives. You sit on the tailgate and take the card out again, and find that the part about knowing the difference has already started to make sense.

The road ahead runs straight as a ruled line, shimmering at the edges. You take it at the pace the tyre allows, one mile marker at a time, counting down.