Close-up photo of a black outline tattoo of a heart containing the words NOT YOU in block capitals, on a patch of skin.

Outlined heart with NOT YOU lettering

Lettering · Black and grey · Photo

A black outline of a heart sits on pale skin, with the words NOT YOU written in bold block capitals across its centre. The linework is even and uniform in weight, and the lettering is filled in solid black. The ink is the only colour in the frame, and the tattoo fills most of the composition against a soft, slightly out-of-focus background of skin.

Lettering Heart Word Text 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

Maureen Pask had run the stamping line at Crabtree's in Morecambe for twenty-six years, and in all that time the only thing she had ever sent back was a batch with the wrong shade of pink. So when the new lad, Kieran, held up a tray of February hearts and asked if the lettering was meant to say that, she took it off him without a word and held it under the strip light.

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NOT YOU ran across every heart in fat navy capitals, the same ink as the outlines they'd printed for the Co-op order. Somebody had loaded the wrong die on Tuesday night, and by the time the night shift caught it, nine thousand sweets had already gone down the chute into bags. Dennis from the front office wanted the lot skipped and the dies melted down by Friday. 'It's a candy heart, Maureen, not a love letter,' he said, tapping his clipboard. 'Nobody reads them properly.'

She went home that evening with one heart in her coat pocket, the single sweet that had skidded off the tray and under the rollers. Her sister had posted a card that morning, glittery, with a robin on the front, and Maureen had propped it against the kettle without opening it. She set the heart on the windowsill beside the card and sat looking at it until the kitchen went dark.

On Friday the dies went into the furnace and the spoiled trays went out to the bins behind the factory. Maureen stayed late to sweep the floor and found the windowsill in the packing room had a faint navy smudge where the sweet had sat in its paper. She didn't wipe it away. She just went home and opened the card.