Black and white photo of two hands with hand-lettered "I love you" script tattooed across the fingers, in a lettering style on the fingers.

"I love you" script on two fingers

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

Two hands are held together, with the inked phrase "I love you" written along the length of each of two fingers. The lettering is thin, slightly uneven and handwritten in character, with black ink on pale skin. The photograph is in black and white, with a ring with stones visible on one hand and a blurred car interior behind the fingers.

Lettering Hand Script Finger Handwriting Phrase

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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 borrow the biro from the cabin drawer, the one with the teeth marks and the broken clip, and you write on the fingers of your left hand while the diesel is still warming and the quay lamps are going out one by one along Fish Dock Road. Her letters go on the other hand, because she taught you never to write the same thing twice on the same side. Your handwriting is worse than hers. It slopes like a boat listing into a swell.

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By the time the trawler clears the harbour wall the ink has gone soft with spray and the words are blurring at the knuckles. Skipper Dunn shouts for you to take the wheel and you do, keeping both hands on the spokes, feeling the letters press against the cold wood. Gulls follow the wake for a mile and then give up. The North Sea is the colour of wet slate and it does not care what is written on anybody.

Six days later the net comes up heavy with cod and you are hauling on the slick deck with your sleeves rolled. Your fingers are stiff and grey, and when you finally look down the lettering has faded to a faint shadow, barely there. Dunn sees you rubbing at it with a thumb and laughs, asking if you've been writing love letters to the fish.

That night the phone box at the top of the quay still hums with its light. You press the receiver to your ear and tell her the words are still there, faint as tide marks, and when she asks you to say them again you do, slowly, one finger at a time.