Colour botanical tattoo of a purple freesia with green stems and buds on a person's shoulder near the collarbone.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Purple freesia on a shoulder

Botanical · Shoulder · Colour · Photo

A purple freesia bloom with two open petals and a pale centre sits on the skin, with a branch of green stems, leaves and closed buds trailing down and to the left. The linework is clean and dark, with soft shading in lilac and violet across the petals and gentle green tones on the foliage. The tattoo sits on the upper shoulder and chest, and the cropped frame shows only the neck, shoulder and upper chest, with no face visible.

Botanical Shoulder Flower Bud Stem Leaf Floral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The big top came down on Tuesday in Ilkley, and by Thursday the last of the company had drifted off with their trunks on the back of a borrowed lorry. Mr Achterberg sold the elephant to a farm near Skipton and kept the horses only because nobody would buy them. I am writing from the empty ticket wagon, which still smells of sawdust and Mrs Pryce's cooking oil.

Mrs Pryce has been growing freesias in an old tin bath behind the wagons all winter, which seemed daft to the rest of us until the frost came. She cut the first stems on Wednesday, the pale ones and the purple ones, and wrapped them in wet newspaper for the journey. She pressed a single branch into my hands at the gate and said, "Don't open them till you're somewhere with a window." The buds are still closed, little green knuckles running down the stem as if they are listening for something.

I don't know yet where I'm going. Ilkley has a bus station and a cafe that might take a ticket seller who can count change in her head, so perhaps that's the start. Write back to the Leeds address and tell me whether Dad's knee is any better. I'll keep the flowers somewhere dark until I find a sill that catches the morning light.

Love, Nell