A held-up paper form titled Typical girl tattoo form, with black line drawings of an anchor, an infinity symbol with the word Word, a dreamcatcher, a feather and a flock of birds.

Tattoo design sheet with anchor and dreamcatcher

Fine line · Black and grey · Flash

A paper form is held up in a hand, showing black line drawings of an anchor, an infinity symbol with the word Word, a dreamcatcher with feathers, a single feather and a flock of birds. The drawings use thin, sketchy linework in black ink on a cream background. Printed text includes a placement section listing foot, wrist, ribs and muffin top, and the photo is taken against a dark wooden surface.

Fine line Anchor Infinity symbol Dreamcatcher Feather Bird Word

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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

Priya had been photocopying the same form for eleven years, and by now she could tell which walk-ins had filled it in at the bus stop. The anchor was always ticked first. Nobody wanted an anchor for the sea. They wanted it because a cousin had one, or because it looked like staying put when everything else had been packed into bin bags.

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Tuesday's walk-in was different. Mr Okafor, who ran the sorting depot on Calder Road, sat down with the sheet folded into quarters and smoothed it flat on the counter. He had crossed out the infinity sign and written beside it, in capitals, NOT THE WORD. Then he asked her to draw the feather the way his late wife had kept one pressed in her hymn book, pale and bent at the tip, and to leave the birds off entirely, because he did not want to be reminded of how many had left the yard that winter.

She drew it three times. The third was right, the tip curled like something still settling. He watched the pencil the whole time without speaking, and when she finally asked where he wanted it, he pointed at the thin skin inside his wrist, then changed his mind and pointed at the back of his hand, which was where she would have put it anyway.

Afterwards she tore the old form off the pad, folded it in quarters, and pinned the feather sketch to the wall above the autoclave, where it stayed until the shop moved out of Calder Road.