Black and white photo of a fine line script tattoo reading Ohana with a small heart on the inner wrist.

Ohana script with heart on wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo is the word Ohana written in a flowing, handwritten script in black ink, with a small outlined heart at the end of the final letter. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and the lettering runs diagonally across the wrist. The photograph is greyscale, with fingertips with painted nails visible at the top edge of the frame.

Lettering Fine line Forearm Ohana Heart Script word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last ferry leaves Tanaroa before dusk, so you walk the shingle road with your cousin Mele's bag over your shoulder and the wrong shoes on. Nobody meets the boat any more except Auntie Sina, who stands by the bollard with her arms folded as though the sea owes her money. She says your name the way she rings the church bell, loud enough to carry, and then she takes the bag off you without asking.

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The house on the hill has eleven people in it and a dog called Pilot who sleeps under the kitchen table. Nobody asks where you have been for six years. They ask whether you have eaten, and a plate appears in front of you before you can answer. Uncle Tevita writes the family names on the back of the calendar in biro, each one followed by a small dash. When you ask what the dash means, he taps it and says, still here. Your name sits at the bottom with no dash yet.

On the third morning Auntie Sina takes your wrist, turns it towards the window and says the word slowly, the way you might teach someone a hymn. Then she draws it across the skin with a felt pen, the letters leaning and hooked, and at the end she adds a small heart where the pen lifted. "Wash it off if you want," she says, already reaching for the kettle. "Family doesn't come off so easily."

You don't wash it. You lift the teapot with that hand every morning and read the word upside down as you pour. By the time the felt has faded in the salt weeks of the dry season, the line is still there under your thumb, and when Uncle Tevita comes to the bottom of the calendar page he reaches over, presses a dash beside your name, and leaves the heart to finish the sentence.