Black fine lettering reading "i am because you were" in a clean sans-serif font across the upper back, near the shoulder blade.

Lowercase quote tattoo on upper back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a line of black lowercase text across the upper back, running diagonally from the shoulder blade towards the spine. The lettering is thin and evenly weighted, with crisp edges and solid black ink on warm, orange-toned skin. The image is taken at a slight angle with a bright background behind the shoulder, so the text sits centrally in the frame.

Lettering Fine line Back Text Quote Word

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 boat came back on Tuesday with Hal at the tiller and nobody else aboard, and I have been sitting with that the way you sit with a cold cup, not drinking it, not pouring it out. You will want to know what the men said. They said the weather turned at four, the net went over the side, and Owen went after it on the line. I have heard the story four times now from four mouths, and it gets longer each time.

Keep reading

I keep coming back to the saying your grandmother painted on the lintel of the net loft the year she married into this family: i am because you were. She meant it plainly. Nobody is any good on their own, she told me, and a man who thinks otherwise has never had to haul a seine alone. I used to think it sounded like a riddle. This week it reads more like a debt.

So I went down to the slip this morning with the old tin of black paint and a brush, and I did the lettering myself on the transom of Owen's dinghy, where the rot has got in. It took me three hours. My hand shook and the g came out like a hook. But the words are there now, low down where the spray can't reach them, and every time I drag that dinghy up the shingle I will read them first.

Come home when the herring run. Bring the twine you owe me and tell Hal he owes me a proper cup of tea. I have left the lamp in the window, and not for ghosts. It is for the boats, and for you. Your Aunt Nan.