Fine line black tattoo of a heartbeat trace with the script words Just live, placed on the upper chest near the collarbone.

Heartbeat line with script on the chest

Fine line · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A black heartbeat trace runs horizontally across the upper chest, with two tall spikes and smaller bumps between them. The script words Just live continue from the right end of the line in a flowing, slanted hand. The ink is solid black on pale skin, shown in a close, slightly angled photograph with soft natural light.

Fine line Lettering Chest Heartbeat Ecg line Script text

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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

You learn the night ward by its sounds before its faces. At three the lift in Ward 9 hums up and down the shaft, and the monitors chirp in a rhythm you could set a watch by. Your job is to wheel the ECG machine from bed to bed, tear the printed strips from the roll and fold them into your pocket like receipts, the way your nan folded bus tickets into her purse.

Keep reading

Mrs Adeyemi in bed four keeps asking whether the paper is the weather. You tell her it is her heart, drawn in a long pen line by someone who never stops. She says it looks like a mountain range seen from a train window. Tonight the line is steady, two tall peaks with small hills between, and she taps the page with one painted nail and says, "Write something on it for me, love."

You have a biro clipped to your breast pocket. In the empty space after the last beat you write the words slanting the way your nan wrote on birthday cards, just live. Mrs Adeyemi reads them twice, lips moving, then folds the strip carefully and tucks it inside her cardigan, against the fabric over her chest.

At half five the sky over the car park turns the colour of dishwater. The day staff clatter in with their bags and coffee. When you finally sit down in the staff room, your pocket is full of strips, and the one you didn't hand over is still warm from the printer, the ink still soft at the edges.