Fine line black outline of the state of Massachusetts with a small red heart near its eastern coast, tattooed on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Massachusetts outline with red heart

Fine line · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo is a black outline map of the state of Massachusetts, with its coastline and Cape Cod shown at the lower right. A small solid red heart sits inside the eastern part of the outline. The linework is a consistent black line on pale skin with light body hair, and the composition is centred on the forearm.

Fine line Forearm Map State outline Heart Outline

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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

Walter slid the ferry timetable across the coat-check counter at the Starlight Ballroom in Lowell, folded in quarters, as if it were a menu he had already ordered from. On the back someone had sketched the state in blue biro, the long arm of the Cape hooked round like a crooked finger, and a dot pressed hard over the bit where Boston sat. He had gone over that dot twice more with the pen, so the paper had torn a little.

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The band was playing something slow with a clarinet in it, and the floor was full of couples turning in the same tight circle. I asked him whether the dot was meant to be me or the city, and he said the dot was the place a man could come back to if the boat went wrong. I told him that was a poor thing to draw on a dance card. He laughed and said he had never been any good at cards.

He came back the next Saturday with his left sleeve rolled to the elbow and a stranger's needle marks still angry on the inside of his wrist. He had had the whole coastline done in black, every inlet, the hook of the Cape exactly where his biro had put it. He held the arm out under the hall lights so I could see. There was a gap in the eastern part, a space the size of a thumbprint, and he asked me what I thought should go there. I took the pen from behind the counter, pressed it to his skin, and drew a small heart in the spot where the harbour would be.