Two matching black swirl symbol tattoos, one on each inner wrist, drawn in simple single-weight linework.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two swirl symbols on the wrists

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two black tattoos sit on the inner wrists of two arms, one a looped, knot-like swirl and the other a tall spiral with curled ends. The lines are smooth, even and solid black, with no shading or fill. The photo shows a plain skin tone against a grey and white tiled floor.

Forearm Swirl Spiral Symbol Flourish

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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

Mind the step, the lift's been dead since Easter, so we climb the old way, one landing at a time, the way the saints climbed. Now listen. On the ninth floor of Merrow House lived two cousins, Ada and Lind, who shared a single biro and a grudge about whose turn it was to feed the pigeons on the balcony. Their gran said the biro would run dry before the grudge did, and she was right about the biro.

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One wet November they found a tin of old Indian ink under the bin store sink and dared each other to draw on their wrists. Ada made a knot that looped back on itself like a sleeping eel. Lind made a tall spiral with its ends curled up like a fern that had forgotten which way was up. Each swore the other's was the wrong shape. They swore it for forty years.

Then the council painted the stairwell beige, and the cousins moved to opposite ends of the city, and the ink stayed put like a promise neither wanted to be first to break. When Lind's boat docked in March, Ada was waiting at the foot of the stairs with the lift still broken, and she held up her wrist before saying a word. Lind held up hers. The spiral and the knot fit together like a key and its lock, and they stood there laughing until the caretaker shouted down to ask if they were drunk.

Nobody on the ninth floor ever understood what the marks meant, which the cousins said was the whole point. Some things are only for the people who put them there. So if you climb to Merrow House tonight, count the landings and don't look too hard at the bin store wall. The swirls are still there, faded to grey, waiting for someone to read them the right way up.