Black script tattoo reading i am because you are running diagonally along the inner forearm, in a lettering style.

Script quote on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink script tattoo runs diagonally up the inner forearm and reads "i am because you are". The linework is thin and even, with solid black strokes and no shading. The photo is taken at an angle in a casual indoor setting, with a hand and red painted nails visible above the wrist.

Lettering Forearm Script Quote Text Hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The floor is still warm from the afternoon sun when you find Mr Adeyemi sweeping the Palais alone, chalk dust rising in the gold light like flour. You have come to ask for the job you were promised and never given, and he does not look up. He tells you the band cancelled, the bar is dry, and the Thursday tea dance is for widows who still own good shoes. Then he leans the broom against the stage and asks what you want.

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You say you want to learn to dance properly, the way the couples do in the photographs on the stairs. He laughs, a short bark, and takes your hand the way a baker checks a loaf. Your feet go wrong twice. On the third turn he says, "Say it back to me," and you do not understand until he taps your wrist where the sleeve has slipped. "I am because you are," he says. It is the saying his mother kept on a card above her sink, meaning that nobody becomes anybody alone.

So you count the beats with him all that autumn, under the dead chandeliers. He calls the steps in a language you only half know. Each time you miss, he waits for you to find your own weight again, and you learn that the music is not something you chase. It waits for two people to agree on the same rhythm. By November you can cross the floor without looking at your shoes.

When the council shuts the hall in the new year, he gives you the key on a loop of string, and you still have it. The last thing you see him do is sweep one clean line across the boards and step onto it, turning to face the empty doorway as if someone were coming through. You wait for him to ask you to join him. He only hums, and you find the count yourself.