Two photographs of legs with black handwritten lettering tattooed on the calf and ankle, reading I'm fine and save me.

Handwritten words on calf and ankle

Lettering · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

Two side-by-side photographs show a bare lower leg with black handwritten lettering on the calf, and a raised leg with similar lettering on the ankle. Below the photographs is a block of typed text about depression, which is not part of the tattoo. The lettering is black with fine, slightly uneven strokes, and the photos are taken indoors against a plain carpeted background.

Lettering Calf Ankle Word Handwriting Lettering Leg Ankle

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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 ink had gone thick in the night, so I stood the bottle on the range until it loosened, and by the time I opened the shutters the queue had spilled past the chandler's door. Most wanted letters. A few wanted a single word copied onto card for someone who could not read it themselves. I charged a penny a line and wrote in the round hand the nuns at Saint Brannock's beat into me before they sent me to the mill.

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Mr Haskett came in with his cap twisted in both fists. He wanted his sister in Hull to know the cow had calved, the barn roof had held through March, and that he was not, whatever she had heard from the Dunmore women, drinking. I wrote every word as he said it. Then he leaned over the counter and asked me to add a line he had not spoken, something about missing her cooking, and I shook my head, because I only copy what is said aloud. He went red, then laughed, and told me he had known I would refuse.

The rain came sideways off the fen that afternoon. A girl of nine brought me a slate with a bird chalked on it and asked for its name. I wrote BITTERN in capitals and she copied it four times, tongue poking from the corner of her mouth, pressing so hard the slate squeaked.

A fortnight later Mr Haskett returned with a reply folded small. His sister had written that the roof was his business and the drink was hers to worry over. He asked if I would read it to him, and I did, though the words were plain enough. I kept the folded paper in my drawer afterwards, the ink of the copy beneath it still a shade lighter than my own hand.