Black and grey gecko tattoo with spiral patterns across the shoulder blade and upper back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Gecko with spirals on a shoulder and upper back

Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A stylised gecko with spiralled and swirled body markings runs from the upper back over the shoulder. Bold outlines and grey shading give the spirals and feet a patterned, raised look. The image is a black and white close-up that frames the tattoo across the shoulder and upper back.

Shoulder Back Spiral Swirl Lizard Pattern

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 find it on the stairwell window of Kestrel House, pressed flat against the wired glass between the sixth and seventh floors, as if it has been climbing all night and only now decided to stop. Nobody in the block owns a gecko. Mrs Adeyemi on the eleventh floor says it is a sign the council has finally sent something useful. Mr Doyle from the flat below says it is a sign of a cracked tank somewhere on the estate, and that he will have words with whoever keeps lizards in a building with a lift that smells of chips.

Keep reading

You cup it in your hand. Its toes open and close, each one curling into a little spiral that grips without hurting, and its cool, patterned back rests against your fingers. Eight flights down, the stairs echo with your own footsteps and the faint hum of the lift cable. Out by the bins the wind comes off the car park and bends the buddleia over the fence, and you crouch by the wall where the paint has peeled into swirls of grey and cream.

Kieran from the ground floor comes skidding round the corner with an empty jam jar and a face full of plans. He wants to keep it. He wants to name it after a footballer. You tell him it lives in the walls now, that it was here long before either of you, and that it only comes down when it wants to see the view. He looks at the gecko, then at you, and decides not to argue.

You set it on the concrete. For a moment it does nothing, then it lifts its head, turns once, and climbs the wall in one unbroken curl, up past the faded initials, toward the lit windows of the twelfth floor. You stand there until the last of its tail disappears, and the light in the stairwell clicks off behind you.