Traditional style red rose with black outlines, a rosebud and yellow-green leaves tattooed on the back of a person's neck.

Red rose and bud on the neck

Traditional · Neck · Colour · Photo

A large red rose in bold black outlines sits on the back of the neck, with a smaller closed rosebud rising above it and yellow-green leaves around its base. The rose is shaded with dark red and black at its centre and lighter red on the petals, with solid fills and a classic flat look. The photograph is taken from behind, showing only the neck and blonde hair, with a gold plug in the ear at the top of the frame.

Traditional Neck Rose Rosebud Leaves Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit yourself down by the flour bin, where the ovens can warm your back. This was before the milk cart, before the first bird had the nerve to sing, and old Nan Hollis was at the bench with her sleeves pushed past the elbow, glaring at a cake that would not behave. It was a rose she was after for the Pemberton wedding, a big red bloom sat on a bed of sugar leaves, and every time she piped its middle the centre went muddy, dark as a bruise on a plum.

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Her boy Danny was sixteen and useless at everything except carrying. He watched her scrape the icing back with a palette knife and said, "Just let it be dark, Nan. Roses go dark in the middle when they're old." She told him roses were never old in the middle, only fresh and lovely to the last petal, and if he had one ounce of sense he would fetch the rose water from the cold cupboard.

He fetched it. She dabbed one drop on the bloom and the black settled into the red like ink into blotting paper, soft and deep and right. Danny stood there holding the empty bottle while she told him the trick was never to hide the shadow, only to give it somewhere to sit.

By the time the windows went grey the rose was finished, and so was the tight pink bud above it, not yet decided. The cake went out on the van at seven. Nobody at the reception asked about the dark heart of the rose, and Nan never told them her own mother had taught her that with a steady hand. Go on, have a slice. Mind the crumb, it's still warm.