Black and grey script tattoo spelling the word Strength on the inner wrist and forearm, in a black and white photo.

Strength script on a wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a flowing cursive script tattoo reading Strength across the inner wrist and lower forearm. The lettering uses dark, smooth linework with some shading, and the monochrome photo leaves the ink looking black and grey. The composition is close and cropped, with long dark hair and a hand at the top edge, and a pendant necklace and white top visible below.

Lettering Forearm Strength Word Necklace

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the ferry didn't run again today, so I am writing this on the back of the tide tables with the stove ticking behind me. Mrs Hadley at the post office says the swell will keep up until Thursday, which means your letter from Aberdeen will sit in her sack with the rest, and I will read it with my boots on the table, the way you always said Mother would have skinned me for.

Keep reading

Mother's old slate still hangs by the scullery door. You will remember the word she chalked there the winter the boats were three days overdue, the one she wrote in that looping hand with each letter running into the next: STRENGTH. She never rubbed it out. Last week I wiped the rest of the slate clean with my sleeve and left only that word, because the dust had settled into the grooves and I couldn't bear to scrub it away.

Here is the strange part. Yesterday Dad came in from the shingle, stood at that slate a long while, and said nothing. Then he took the chalk, went over the word until it stood out white against the grey, and drew a line beneath it, hard enough that the chalk snapped in his fingers.

I do not know whether he meant it for her or for us. I only know the pier needs mending before the spring tides, and he has started on it, and I have decided to go down in the morning and hold the lantern for him. Write soon, and tell me the Scots don't eat their porridge with salt.

Love, Nell