Black and grey shaded flower tattoos on the backs of both hands, with the words Stay True in black script across the fingers.

Flowers and Stay True script on hands

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

Two hands are shown from the back, each with a shaded black and grey flower: a lotus-like bloom on the left hand and a rose on the right. The words Stay True run in bold black script across the knuckles and fingers, with the lettering crossing between the two hands. The photo is taken straight on, with the fingers slightly curled and the background dark and softly out of focus.

Lettering Traditional Hand Flower Lotus Rose Script Word

Find an artist for this

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 are standing on the Hull quay at five in the morning with a paper cup of tea going cold, watching your brother Ivo hold his fists up to the lamplight so the dockhands can read what the Grimsby man inked across his knuckles. STAY, says the left hand. TRUE, says the right. Ivo grins and turns them so the words run across the gap between his fingers, as though the sentence had been waiting for two people to finish it.

Keep reading

The lotus sits on his left hand because Ivo wanted something that opened on still water, and the rose sits on your right because your mam grew roses against the scullery wall and you swore you would never forget the smell of them. The tattooist charged two pounds and a bottle of rum and told you ink lasts longer than promises. Ivo thought that was the funniest thing he had heard all year.

The Mary Ellen takes you past the Humber mouth, and for three weeks there is nothing but grey water and the smell of tar. Ivo learns the knots faster than anyone and laughs loudest when the cook drops the pan. Then a squall takes the foremast in the night, and in the dark Ivo is on the wrong side of a rope that is pulling him over the rail. You have his wrist in both hands. You do not let go, even when the sea does its best to make you.

You are home now, on the scullery step, and the roses have come back late and brown at the edges. You hold your right hand out flat in the sunlight. Beside it, Ivo's left hand hangs empty from the sling, the lotus pale and blurred, and you press your palms together the way you did on the deck. The two words meet in the middle and read as one again.