Four photos of small black fine line semicolon tattoos on fingers and a wrist, one finger also carrying a black triangle and circle symbol.

Small semicolon tattoos on fingers and wrist

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

This collage shows four close photographs of hands with small, simple black tattoos. The main motif is a semicolon, placed on a finger joint, on a finger alongside a triangle enclosing a circle and a vertical line, and on the inside of the wrist. The linework is crisp and solid with no shading, and the ink is black against the skin, with the hands set against varied backgrounds such as foliage, a plain wall and printed pages.

Fine line Hand Forearm Semicolon Triangle Circle Line Finger Wrist

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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 officer at Halden Crossing turns your passport over twice, as if the cover might say something different the second time. Behind you the coach engine ticks as it cools, and a folded letter sits in your coat pocket. "Purpose of travel?" you say your sister's wedding. That's only half a sentence. She waits for the rest, the way people wait for a kettle to finish.

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Your mother taught you about the semicolon at the kitchen table, with a red pen in her hand. It joins two clauses that belong together, she said, and promises that a second thought is coming before anyone is allowed to stop listening. She marked every one you wrote as a mistake until you understood that she loved them. You kept the mark anyway, small and dark, and you have never once explained it to anyone at a desk.

The officer asks what is in the envelope. You hand it across. Inside is her handwriting, one line on squared paper: Come home, the bread's still warm; I haven't finished saying what I meant. The officer reads it slowly, lips moving on the word warm. Somewhere down the corridor a child is laughing, and the fluorescent tube above you flickers once and holds.

She stamps the page, slides the passport back open at your photograph and says, "Go on, then. Finish it yourself." You step out into the grey light with the ink still wet and the sentence, for once, not yet full stopped.