Black and white photo of a woman seen from behind with a fine line script tattoo reading Be free and small bird shapes on her upper back.

Fine line script tattoo on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman with long hair gathered over one shoulder is photographed from behind, wearing an off-shoulder knitted top. A small fine line script tattoo sits on her upper back near the shoulder blade, with a few small bird shapes above the lettering. The black and white photograph uses soft light against a textured pale wall, keeping the focus on the tattoo.

Fine line Lettering Back Script Lettering Bird

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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

Dear Nell, the bus put me down at the turn-off past Cinder Wells just as the heat let go of the tarmac, and I stood there with my case until a lorry driver with a cracked dashboard offered me a lift to the coast. He asked why I was going so far from home. I told him I was going to find the birds you kept drawing in the margins of my school jotters.

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You'll remember the shorthand we made up: three strokes for a swallow, a dot for the one that had flown south without telling anyone. Out here the birds are real and nobody bothers to name them. A kestrel hangs over the cattle grid every morning, and at the petrol station a woman sells me coffee in a paper cup and says, Be safe, love, the way other people say goodbye. I've started answering her with the same two words you used to write under my drawings. It's funny how a phrase gets lighter the further you carry it.

The thing I meant to say before I left is this. I wasn't running from Mum's kitchen or the job at the surgery. I was heading for the sea you always promised to show me, and I kept waiting for you to say I could go. You never did, so I've given myself permission instead, and I've spent the last of my coins on this postcard, which has a lighthouse on the front that looks nothing like the one you described.

The kestrel just dropped onto the fence post beside me, watching the envelope as if it might fly off. I'm posting this at the next town. Keep the margins of your jotters clean, and keep one space free for me.