Black and grey photo of a woman seen from behind, with a small black script tattoo on the nape of her neck and her hair held to one side.

Small script tattoo on the nape of the neck

Lettering · Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A woman is photographed from behind, holding her hair up with one hand to show a small black tattoo on the nape of her neck. The tattoo is a vertical line of fine, lettering-style strokes that resemble a non-Latin script. The image is black and grey, with soft, dramatic lighting and a dark patterned background that draws attention to the skin and tattoo.

Lettering Fine line Neck Script Lettering Hair Back Shoulder

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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 card had been folded so many times the creases had gone soft as cloth. My sister had written my speech in a script none of us could read, looping letters that leaned like wind-bent grass, and at ten to four on her wedding day I was standing behind the marquee with a cup of tea going cold, trying to work out what she had promised her husband.

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Nan had taught her those letters one winter in a kitchen in Leicester, tracing them on the steamed window with a wet finger. Nan never wrote anything down for anyone but the one person who needed it, my sister said. I took the card to Mr Okafor at the library, who squinted at it, laughed, and told me it was a lullaby, the kind you sing when the lamp is low and the child refuses to close her eyes.

I stood up at the top table with the card trembling a little in my hand. I read the lullaby aloud, badly, mangling every vowel, and the room went quiet in a way I had not expected. Her husband had his eyes shut. Somebody's grandmother in the third row began humming along under her breath, a half beat behind me, the way Nan always did.

Afterwards my sister pressed the card back into my palm and said the real speech was the one I had got wrong, because the mistakes were the bits Nan would have laughed at. I still keep it in my jacket pocket. The creases have gone soft as cloth.