Black traditional tattoo of a rose with stippled dotwork petals, two arrows and the words LOVE YOURSELF SO NO ONE HAS TO set in a circle around it.

Rose and arrows with circular lettering

Traditional · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a rose in bold black outline, with its petals filled in stippled dotwork shading and a small bud at the centre. Two arrows pass through the design from the left and right, and the words LOVE YOURSELF and SO NO ONE HAS TO run around the rose in a circle in plain block capitals. The work is entirely black ink, and the composition is centred and tightly framed on the skin.

Traditional Dotwork Rose Arrow Lettering Quote Bud

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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

The last train to Hexham has gone, and the platform lights hum over the empty bench where you left your rucksack. Mrs Okonedo from the buffet is hauling the shutter down. She says the night porter will let you sit in the waiting room until the first service, provided you keep your hands off the radiator. You promise. Your sister's text is still unanswered in your coat pocket, three words long, and you have decided it can wait until you know what you intend to say back.

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Desmond keeps the lost property office at the end of the footbridge, behind a door that sticks in wet weather. He pulls a cardboard box marked ODDS from under the counter and tips it out between you: a single leather glove, a paperback with a bus ticket for a bookmark, a brass key that opens nothing he has tried. Near the bottom is an enamel badge the size of a biscuit, a rose in a ring with two arrows crossed behind it, the paint worn to bare metal on one side. Round the edge, faint but legible, someone has stamped LOVE YOURSELF and then, in smaller letters, SO NO ONE HAS TO.

"Carriage sheds, 1970s," Desmond says. "Fitter called Ray used to wear one on his overalls. Every time the foreman shouted at him he'd touch it like a lucky coin. Nobody ever asked him what the second bit meant, so I never found out either."

You turn the badge over. The pin is bent but the clasp still holds. You think of your sister's three words, and of how long you have spent waiting for someone else to tell you what you were allowed to stop carrying. The 05:12 is announced, crackling through the speakers like a hymn sung on a bad radio. You pin the rose to the inside of your coat, take out the phone, and start typing.