Black lettering reading 'We are what we pretend to be' with a small asterisk below, tattooed on a person's upper back near the shoulder.

Handwritten quote tattoo on the shoulder

Lettering · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a handwritten quote tattooed on upper back skin, reading 'We are what we pretend to be' over three lines with a small black asterisk beneath. The lettering is uneven and sketchy, with lines of varying weight, and the ink is solid black. The warm-toned shot shows the shoulder and a section of red hair against a pale blue background.

Lettering Shoulder Quote Lettering Asterisk Handwriting

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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

Third night running, the sister had put me on the bay by the lifts, which meant I got the relatives first. Mr Adeyemi's son was already at the desk when I came on at ten, jacket zipped to his chin, asking whether his dad knew he'd been sick in the car park. I said his dad was resting. I said he'd been asking for him. The second one wasn't strictly true, but I'd heard the old man say the word son twice before midnight, so I let it stand.

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Above the sluice sink somebody had taped a strip of drug-chart paper, and on it, in biro, in capitals that leaned like they were running for a bus: WE ARE WHAT WE PRETEND TO BE. Dev, the porter, had written it there in March and sworn he'd read it on a cereal packet. Under it he'd drawn a little asterisk with too many arms, which he said was a full stop with ambition. Every time I filled the kettle I read it, the way you check a pocket for keys you already know are there.

By two the ward had gone quiet in the way that means something is about to happen. A monitor chirped down the corridor and I was walking towards it before I'd decided to, face arranged into the calm I'd watched senior nurses wear for years, shoulders down, voice low. Nobody could tell the difference from ten feet away. Most nights I couldn't tell either, and that was the trick of it.

At six the son came back up in the grey light with two coffees and no jacket. His dad was awake, I told him, and had asked first thing whether the boy had driven himself. This time I was sure of it. I handed him a cup and didn't look at the sink on my way past, because I already knew what it said.