Black fine line script reading I refuse to sink, with a small anchor at the end, on a person's upper back near the shoulder.

I refuse to sink script and anchor on shoulder

Fine line · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a black script phrase, I refuse to sink, followed by a small anchor drawn in a matching black line. The thin, slightly slanted lettering runs diagonally across the upper back near the shoulder blade. The ink is black on warm-toned skin, and the soft, slightly blurred background shows a pale ceiling and light.

Fine line Lettering Shoulder Back Anchor Quote

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

The galley stove had been cold since the storm, and Mrs Okonedo swore she could smell the sea coming up through the floorboards. Tomas found her scraping the last of the oats into a tin, her sleeves rolled past the elbow, a bruise on one forearm the colour of weak tea. She didn't look up when he came in. She only said the bread had gone hard as a bollard and he would have to chew it like a man who meant it.

Keep reading

He had been aboard the Halcyon Mary eleven weeks, long enough to learn that the cook kept her own counsel and her own tally of who had gone over the side. She had taught him to splice rope in the dog watches and to say grace under his breath when the swell was bad. Tonight the lamp swung on its hook and threw her shadow up the bulkhead, enormous and steady, while the hull groaned like a cow in a field.

When the water came over the rail at four bells, she was the first one into the flooded hold with a lantern in her teeth. Tomas followed her down with the pump handle, and between them they got the bilge clear by dawn, though the cargo of sugar was ruined and the captain would be sour about it for a month. Mrs Okonedo sat on an upturned crate afterwards and pushed up her sleeve to look at the bruise. Then she took a stub of charcoal from her apron and drew a small anchor on the back of her own hand, just to see if it would stay.

"Ship's going nowhere without that," she said, and went to light the stove.