Fine line black geometric tattoo of a vertical arrow with diamond and chevron motifs, sitting centrally on the upper back between the shoulder blades.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Vertical geometric arrow tattoo on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small vertical tattoo of stacked diamonds, chevrons and a pointed arrow-like shape runs down the centre of the upper back. The linework is fine and even, with the diamond shapes built from crossing lines and solid black tips at the top and bottom. The ink is black on warm skin, and the framing shows the wearer's back above a black open-back top.

Fine line Geometric Back Arrow Diamond Chevron Geometric pattern Line

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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

Sit down, sit, the goats can wait. You want to know why the old men of Kesh Pass cut that sign into every gatepost? Listen. Before there was a wall at the top of the pass, there was only the arrow, and the arrow was a promise. The point faces the road you may take. The diamonds are the valleys you will cross, one stacked upon the next, and the chevrons are the snow that will try to turn you round.

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My uncle Tomas carried salt over that pass for thirty winters and never lost a mule. Each autumn he stopped at the stone by the shepherd's hut, ran his thumb down the cut lines, and counted the diamonds aloud as if the mountain were a schoolmaster. Eleven, he would say. Eleven crossings to the lower town. Then the soldiers came with their new maps, and the maps had no diamonds on them, only straight lines and numbers.

In the spring of the bad year, a boy came up the track with a thin mule and no papers, asking which road was safe. Tomas did not answer him. He took a stick of charcoal from his coat and drew the arrow on the boy's palm, point upward, with a small diamond at the base. Go by the marks, he said, not by the men at the gate. Count them, and do not stop until you have counted eleven.

The boy came down into the lower town three days later, the charcoal still faint on his hand. He walked into the bakery and asked for bread in the old tongue. Nobody asked for his papers. The baker only looked at the arrow, nodded, and went to fetch the good loaf. That is the whole of the road, child. The pointed end goes first, and somebody always marks the way for the next one.