Black and grey fine line tattoo of a feather joined to an infinity symbol with the words stay strong, on the forearm.

Feather and infinity with stay strong script

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A shaded feather sits on the left and flows into an infinity symbol that loops around to form the words stay strong in cursive script. The feather is rendered in soft grey shading with fine barbs, while the lettering and infinity loop use thin, even black linework. The skin is pale and the tattoo is shown in close, centred framing with black bars above and below the photo.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Feather Infinity symbol Script Stay strong

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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 feather came off a gull that had been fighting the wind over the slipway all morning, and I had it in my pocket before I could think better of it. Mam says gulls are bad luck to keep anything from, but Mam is not the one writing to you, so I will tell you what I did with it.

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I pressed it flat inside the atlas between Valparaiso and the Cape, because that is where you said the Calliope would be by now. Then I took the good pen and wrote your name on the envelope, and under it, as small as I could make the letters, the two words you always said to me when the doctor came up the stairs with his bag: stay strong. I drew a loop round them, the way you used to loop your sums so they wouldn't run off the page, and the loop refused to close, so I kept going round until the nib split.

The kettle is on now. Dad has sat in the chair by the range for an hour without opening his paper. He asks after you every evening and then pretends he hasn't. Yesterday he read the shipping column twice over, looking for the Calliope's name, and I watched his finger stop on it and stay there.

The feather goes in with this letter, so don't lose it. When the wind gets up off the Horn and you can't tell which way is north, hold it up and let it show you. Then remember that the loop always brings you back to where you started, however far round it takes you.