Black lettering tattoo on a thigh reading 'It takes courage to grow up and become who you truly are', with ornamental flourishes above and below the text.

Quote lettering with flourishes on a thigh

Lettering · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink tattoo on the outer thigh of a person in a dark blue top, set out as a quotation. Bold capitals spell 'WHO YOU TRULY ARE' with smaller lettering above and a credit line below, framed by scroll-like flourishes. The work is entirely black with solid lines and no shading, and the text is centred across the thigh.

Lettering Thigh Quote Text Flourish Scroll Courage

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The big top had two holes in it by then, one over the trapeze and another where the rain came through every April, and Dad still called it the Tent of Wonders as though the canvas hadn't gone grey. I was sixteen when I found the card tucked behind the mirror in the wardrobe wagon, its corners soft from handling. Nan had written a line on it in green pencil, the letters leaning over as if they were tired: It takes courage to grow up and become who you truly are.

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Dad saw me holding it that night over the cold tea in the kitchen caravan. The clowns had gone to a rep company in Leeds, the sea lion had died in March, and the elephant was waiting on a sanctuary in Wales that kept writing to ask about her teeth. He wanted me for the autumn tour, the one where we played car parks and the council sent a man with a clipboard. I didn't argue. I just turned the card over and showed him the back, where Nan had drawn a little ringmaster's hat with a bite out of it.

I walked the ring at dusk, the way I always did, feeling the sawdust give under my plimsolls. The wire was still rigged low for practice, a foot off the boards, and I stepped onto it and let my arms find the balance they had known since I was six. Halfway across I stopped and took the card from my pocket and held it at arm's length, reading it in the last of the light.

I left it on the trunk lid in the wardrobe wagon, face up, with my name written under Nan's line in the same green pencil. Then I caught the early train from Doncaster, and I did not look back at the tent until the cutting swallowed it.