Colour lotus flower tattoo with pink and teal wash, dotwork shading and a thin geometric circle, on a forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lotus flower on a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A lotus flower with layered petals sits at the centre of a thin dotted circle, with a dotted line running up and down through the design. The petals combine stippled dotwork shading with soft pink, magenta and teal washes that fade at the edges, outlined in black. The tattoo is shown close up on a forearm against a plain turquoise wall.

Botanical Geometric Dotwork Forearm Lotus Flower Petal Circle Dot Line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasz,

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The lotus opened on Tuesday, and I know you said it would never flower in a bucket on a fourteenth-floor balcony, so consider yourself wrong. I rang the bin man to say I'd be late for the bins because I wanted to watch it. He laughed and said nobody has ever been late for bins over a flower, and I said that was because nobody has ever tried.

The bulb came from the market on Saturday, wrapped in a carrier bag with wet newspaper round it. The woman on the stall said it wanted mud and sun and to be left alone, which is also what I say about my knees. I took the compass from your drawer, the one with the bent needle, and drew a circle on the lid of the paint tin to work out where the pot should sit. Mrs Patel next door thinks I've gone soft. She leaves her washing out on the rail, and I leave my lotus out to pretend it's somewhere warm.

Then the flower came up through the water like someone waking slowly. The outer petals first, sharp at the tips, then the pink inside that looked like a struck match. In the evening the teal from the sky over the car park got into the petals, and I swear the thing had been painted by hand. I wish you had seen it. You'd have pulled out your pencil and tried to count the dots on the stem.

Come at the weekend. Bring the good tea. I'll leave the balcony door open so you can hear the buses on the ring road, and I'll run a length of string from the rail to the pot so you can see where the bloom will sit when the sun comes round. Your mum said the flower was for me. I think it was really for you, and I'm keeping it warm until you get here.