Black fine line dandelion with seeds drifting into small birds on the inner forearm and wrist of a person with pink lipstick.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dandelion and birds on a wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink dandelion seedhead sits on the inner wrist and forearm, with its seeds dispersing into a loose trail of small birds toward the upper arm. The linework is fine and delicate, with stippled seeds and shaded areas giving the head some depth. The image is a close, slightly warm-toned crop showing the lips, chin and a dark zipped jacket, with the tattoo as the clear focus.

Fine line Botanical Forearm Dandelion Seed Bird

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tess,

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I left the reunion before the raffle, which you will have noticed, because you noticed everything in Year Nine and I doubt that has changed. The hall at St Brannoc's smelled of floor polish and warm sausage rolls, and Mr Harker still called everyone by their surname, as if we might have forgotten them. I stood by the squash table for twenty minutes holding a paper plate, waiting for someone to say my name properly.

Then I walked out to the car park, and on the verge by the bike sheds there was a dandelion gone to seed, the whole head pale and round as a moon. I remembered the field behind the sewage works, you lying on your back telling me that every seed was a small promise, and that if you blew hard enough they would land somewhere you had never planned to be. We spent that whole summer blowing them at boys on bikes. I was sixteen and certain the world was a sheet of paper we could write on together.

I stood there and blew, which felt ridiculous in a fleece with a lanyard still round my neck. The seeds went up in a loose scatter and, for a second, they turned into starlings lifting off the school roof. Then they were only seeds, drifting over the railings towards the high street. I don't know where mine are going. I have a job I like in Leeds, a flat with a radiator that clanks like a bad bell, and a dog who hates the postman.

I'm writing because you looked at me across the hall and I didn't go over. I'm sorry. Come and find me on Saturday, if you're still the sort who follows a seed. My number is on the back of this envelope.

Love, Jo