Black and white photo of a fine line script tattoo reading make it count on the upper chest, under the neckline of a white tank top.

Make it count script on the chest

Fine line · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

A close black and white photograph of a small handwritten phrase, make it count, tattooed across the upper chest between the collarbones. The linework is thin and even, with a cursive script that varies slightly in weight, and the ink is solid black. The white tank top with a partly visible black print frames the tattoo at the lower edge of the image.

Fine line Lettering Chest Phrase Handwriting Script

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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

The florist has already tied the last buttonhole when you find the card sewn into the lining of your father's old waistcoat, the one he wore to his own wedding and swore never to put on again. It is folded twice, the ink gone the colour of weak tea, and the handwriting slants the way his always did when he was hurrying or in love. Make it count, it says, and nothing more, as though he ran out of room or nerve.

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You sit on the edge of the bath with the card open on your knee while a hairdresser's radio plays a song from before you were born. Downstairs someone is shouting about the cake knife. You think of the Tuesday he left the gas on, and the Sunday he spent an entire afternoon deciding whether to buy a boat he never once took out. He always meant to do things properly, later. Your mother used to say he counted everything except the things that mattered.

When the photographer calls your name you go down the stairs with the card buttoned into your breast pocket, close against the skin, where it can't be lost. At the altar you slide the ring onto your new husband's finger and his hand is shaking. You tell him the card is about the vows. It isn't, quite. It is about standing in a room full of people who came because you asked them to, and saying the thing out loud before the nerve runs out.