Black and grey rose tattoos on the shoulders and upper chest, with script lettering across the chest, on a person wearing a black sports bra.

Script and rose tattoos on chest and shoulders

Lettering · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

The photo shows black and grey rose tattoos on both shoulders and upper chest, with script lettering running across the chest in a partly visible phrase. The linework is bold and the roses are shaded with grey tones. The image is cropped to the torso, with the subject wearing a black sports bra and underwear against a light bed and a coral cushion.

Lettering Botanical Chest Shoulder Rose Script Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the rain has been coming sideways down the back lane since Tuesday, and I've spent three nights at the bench with the lamp angled low, lettering a phrase for a man who wouldn't tell me what it meant. He wanted it in copperplate, running across his chest, with two roses either side done in grey washes so they'd look pressed in a book. I told him grey roses always look like they're remembering something. He said good, that was the idea.

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I did the roses first, which Mr Harding taught me is the only sensible order. Petals overlapping like wet paper, shadow pooling where the stems go under. The script I left till last and drew freehand, no pencil guide, because a line you can't take back is the only kind worth trusting. My hand shook on the final loop of the second word and I had to start again on a fresh sheet. Eleven drafts, Nell. The twelfth I kept pinned above the sink.

Thursday he came in soaked to the skin and asked whether I'd read the thing through. I said I had. He laughed and said that was the trouble, most people only ever saw the letters. He paid in coppers, asked me to keep the stencil, and walked off towards the station with his collar up.

I've tacked the twelfth draft to the board beside the street map now, so the phrase faces the window. Every time the lamp catches it, the ink looks a shade darker, as if it's still deciding whether to dry.