Black ink tree with a stippled canopy above the script quote 'i climbed the tree to see the world' on the inner forearm near the wrist.

Tree and script quote on the inner wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small tree with a dense, stippled canopy sits above a thin ground line with roots, and a handwritten script quote runs beneath it. The tree is built from fine dots and short strokes, while the lettering uses smooth, even linework. The ink is black on pale skin, and the photo has a warm, sepia-toned finish with a blurred green background.

Lettering Dotwork Forearm Tree Root Script Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The plane tree in Carrow Square had been dropping its bark on the bins for eighty years, and nobody on the council had ever asked it anything. At two in the morning, with Tobi Adeyemi's dare still ringing in my ears, I went up it anyway. I was nine. The trunk was cold and split like old bread, and every handhold smelled of rain and diesel.

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Past the fourth fork the streetlights stopped looking like a row of teeth and started looking like a map someone had left out for me. I could see the bus depot, the river going silver under the bridge, and the crane at the docks blinking its red eye at nothing. Tobi stayed on the bench below, shouting that I'd never reach the top. I didn't tell him the top was the dullest part. The good part was the bakery on Pell Street, where a light came on, then a shutter rattled up, and a woman in a blue cardigan stood in the doorway counting out loaves as if she were the only person awake in England.

I wanted to stay until she looked up and saw a boy in a tree and waved. She didn't. I came down with a torn sleeve and sap to the elbows, and the first thing I did was find a biro in my school bag and write the line on the inside of my wrist so I wouldn't lose it. The ink smudged the moment I pressed my sleeve down.

Tobi asked me what I'd seen. I told him bread, mostly, and a lot of it.