Close-up of a small black tattoo of two short parallel vertical bars on the inner wrist, shown in a minimal style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two parallel bars on a wrist

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close-up photograph of a forearm and wrist showing two short, solid black vertical bars placed side by side near the centre of the wrist. The lines are simple and uniform, with no shading, and the ink appears dark grey to black against pale skin. Other people's hands, clothing and a patterned shirt sit out of focus in the background.

Find an artist for this

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

Mrs Abernethy wanted the hymn taken slower on the Sunday after the funeral, and she wanted the breath marked. I told her the organ doesn't breathe, and she said that was precisely why it needed telling where to stop.

Keep reading

I'd been Mr Holroyd's pupil for three winters, carrying his music case up the hill to St Aidan's while the wind came off the moor like a bad tenant. He taught me to read the old copies in pencil, the pages gone soft as cloth from thumbs. Where a phrase had to end and the next begin, he drew two short upright strokes through the stave, never a fancy sign. "Two bars for a rest you can feel," he'd say, "and the congregation will take their own breath with you."

On the Sunday I played the verse for Mrs Abernethy's husband, who had sung bass in that choir for forty-one years. I left the gap after the third line, the two strokes sitting in the margin of my copy. Nobody in the pews moved. Then old Dorothy Pryce, who hadn't missed a service in her life, sat down a second before the rest of them, and the silence held just long enough for everyone to understand it was theirs.

Afterwards I took the copy home and drew the two bars again in my own hand, fainter, beside Mr Holroyd's. I didn't tell anyone why I'd marked it there.

More like this

Two small fine line tattoos on a wrist: a red semicolon and an outlined square with a tick mark.
Semicolon and square on a wrist
Close-up of a fine line tattoo of ruler tick marks and the numerals 1 and 2 running along the side of a finger, in black ink.
Ruler markings tattooed along a finger
Two short black horizontal lines, forming an equals sign, tattooed across the middle section of a finger on a pale hand.
Two-line equals sign on a finger
Small black block capital lettering reading BE BRAVE, set diagonally on the inner forearm in a lettering style.
Be Brave lettering on a forearm
Six small dots in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple run in a row across the inner wrist, in a dotwork style.
Six rainbow dots on the inside of a wrist
Small black fine line tattoo of a cross with a semicolon beneath it on the inner wrist of a hand with black nail polish.
Small cross and semicolon on wrist
Close photo of a black blackletter lettering tattoo on the inner wrist of a forearm, with the hand resting on a laptop keyboard.
Blackletter lettering on the wrist
Close photo of a small solid black semicolon tattoo on the inner forearm, with a patterned wall in the background.
Semicolon tattoo on inner forearm
Small black semicolon tattoo on the inner wrist of a raised arm, against a patterned grey background.
Semicolon tattoo on the inner wrist
Close-up of a small black fine line hashtag symbol tattooed on the inner wrist of a light-skinned arm, resting over dark denim.
Small hashtag symbol tattoo on the wrist
Small dotwork tattoo of four dots in blue, pink, orange and grey in a diagonal line on the ankle, below a denim jeans cuff.
Four coloured dots on an ankle
Lettering tattoo on the inner forearm in black and purple, with a party message and two purple martini glasses.
Party message and martini glasses on a forearm

From the plentytattoo archive, uploaded by a user. Is this your work? Ask for credit or removal.