Black and grey fine line tattoo of a tree above the handwritten words I climbed the tree to see the world, on the inner wrist and forearm.

Tree and handwritten quote on the inner wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a small tree with a dense, stippled canopy, a slender trunk and a short ground line, with the handwritten words 'i climbed the tree to see the world' set in a vertical column below it. The linework is thin and the canopy is built from dotted shading, all in black ink with no colour. The photograph is taken close up against a blurred background of leaves and a dark wall, with the tattoo running down the inner wrist and forearm.

Lettering Botanical Forearm Tree Quote Handwriting Text

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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

Dear Tom, The 6.42 has gone and the platform is empty except for Mr Haddow sweeping crisp packets into the gutter. I'm writing this on the back of your ticket receipt because you left the notepad in the kitchen drawer with the bus timetables. Mum says you'll be in Aberdeen by morning, which I don't believe, but I've decided to take her word.

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Do you remember the sycamore behind the signal box? You went up it every summer while I stood below holding your shoes and shouting that you'd break your neck. You'd come down with bark in your hair and say the world looked much further off from the top than from the ground, then hand me a boiled sweet you'd been keeping in your pocket. I never once went up. Not because I was scared, or not only, but because somebody had to stay on the grass and hold the shoes.

Tonight I walked over after the last train. The lamps along the platform make the rails look like wet ribbon, and from the bottom of the tree the signal blinks green, then red, then green again, as if it were counting something. I put my hand on the lowest branch, which has a new notch in it where you must have stood. Then I went up. It took three goes and I ripped my good tights. From the top the line runs out north and south into the dark, and I could see the Carlisle road lights and, past them, nothing I knew.

I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty. I just wanted you to know someone was up there. Send me a postcard of whatever you see from the top of the next one. Love, Nell. P.S. Check your coat pocket. I'm fairly sure that sweet is still in there.