Fine line black script tattoo reading resilience, with an arrow at each end, on the inner forearm.

Resilience script with arrows on the forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A single word, resilience, is written in thin black cursive script across the inner forearm, with an arrowhead at the left end and a double-pointed arrow tail at the right. The linework is delicate and even, with no shading, and the ink is solid black. The photo is taken at an angle against a grey knitted jumper and a bookshelf, with the wearer's face outside the frame.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Word Script Arrow

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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

Mam, I have finally found the bookbinder's ledger you wanted back, the one with your father's pencil in the margins, so stop writing to the council about it. The shop on Cable Street is shuttered now, a sheet of plywood over the window with someone's spray-painted phone number. I stood there with the ledger under my coat for ten minutes before I could make myself walk on. The rain got into the spine anyway, so the pages are swollen and the last third sticks together like wet bread.

Keep reading

I went round to the flat above the chemist, the one where Mrs Okafor kept the hens on the back balcony. She remembered you. She said you always came up the stairs two at a time, even when you were carrying the Christmas goose. She gave me a jar of plum jam she swore was from before the rationing of sugar started again, and I didn't have the heart to tell her it can't have been. We ate it off a teaspoon standing up in her kitchen while the kettle went cold.

There is a line in the ledger on the last page with no entry, only a single word written in your hand, looping and leaning right like it was in a hurry to leave. I've copied it out on the back of this letter. I think you meant to keep going, and I am going to try to do the same, one stubborn step after another, even on the days the stairs seem twice as steep as they were.

Bring your reading glasses when you come on Sunday. The jam is still in my bag.