Black and grey traditional tattoo on a thigh, showing a wreath of three roses and leaves around a pointing hand and the script Love Me Till I'm Dead.

Rose wreath with hand and script

Traditional · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A circular wreath of three roses and leafy stems surrounds a hand with the index finger raised and a cuff at the wrist, with the script phrase Love Me Till I'm Dead across the centre. The linework is bold and clean, with dotwork stippling used for shading on the roses, leaves and hand. The design is entirely black ink on pale skin, with a dark background behind the leg.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

Keep reading

The lock at Hawkesbury has swallowed another paint tin, so the roses on the cabin side look like they've been dragged backwards through a hedge. I spent yesterday up on the roof with a borrowed brush and a flask of cold tea, painting the wreath back on the way you showed me, three roses with the leaves tucked between them, all of it wobbling in the wind off the cut.

Danny from the Fenwick boat came over to watch. He wanted to know what the words said, so I read them out, and he laughed until he had to sit down on the gunwale. I told him the raised finger was my dad's signal at the lock gates: wait your turn, I'm coming. Danny said that sounded like a bad proposal. I said it was the only kind worth having on a canal, where everybody is always waiting for somebody else to get through first.

The letter from the boatyard came on Tuesday, quoting for a new hull, and I read it twice by the coal bunker before I put it under the teapot so the wind couldn't have it. I haven't mentioned it because you'd only start doing sums in your sleep again. The paint is still tacky, so I've left the roof alone until you're home to see it.

So come back before the roses dry, you great lump. Bring the spare bilge pump and the tin of red you swore you'd fetch from Braunston. I'll show you the wreath properly, and you can read the words yourself. Love me till I'm dead, I've decided, and then you can haunt the towpath with me for the rest of it.

Yours, still waiting, Nell

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