Small fine line power symbol tattoo in black ink, centred on the upper back just below the hairline.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Power symbol tattoo on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A close view of the upper back of a person with dark, curly hair, showing a small circle with a vertical line at its top, which is the standard power symbol. The linework is thin and even, and the ink reads as dark grey or black against the skin. The tattoo sits centrally near the base of the neck, with the shoulders and blurred background filling the rest of the frame.

Fine line Back Circle Icon Line

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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

Sit closer, and mind the fire, for this one is about a switch and a boy who wanted the whole valley dark.

Keep reading

Old Tomasz Wrenfield kept the little generator house above Harrowgate, where the cables came down off the moor and fed nine cottages and one chapel. On the steel box beside his door was a circle with a stroke at its top, pressed in by a maker long dead. Every evening Tomasz put his thumb to that stroke and the valley hummed awake, lamps yellow in the windows, kettles starting their small wars. Every night at ten he pressed it again and the valley sank into dark, and the stars came out over the chapel like a spill of salt.

His grandson Eli, who was seven and certain of most things, asked why the stars were not allowed to be seen all day. Tomasz laughed and said the stars were always there; it was only the lamps that were loud. Eli took this as a challenge. One night, while the old man dozed in his chair, the boy climbed onto a crate, put his small hand flat on the box and pushed the circle down with his whole weight.

The valley went black. Nine doors opened. Somewhere a baby cried, and the chapel bell began ringing for no reason anyone could name. Tomasz woke, found his grandson's palm still pressed to the steel, and did not scold him. He lifted the boy down, sat him on his knee, and showed him how to press the stroke gently, the way you close a door on someone sleeping.

Eli is grown now, and the mark on the box has worn smooth. Each night he still presses it softly, and he tells the children of Harrowgate that the lamps stay lit only while someone remembers to be gentle with them.