Black and grey lettering tattoo on an upper arm, arranged in a stacked typographic layout with words including fierce, strong, love, wild and life.

Word tattoo on upper arm

Lettering · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo is a block of uppercase words in a condensed sans-serif typeface, including FIERCE, STRONG, DEEP, LOVE, SWEET, WIDE, WILD, FURIOUS, WAKING, HEARTS, TO and LIFE, arranged in a cross-like composition. The lines are crisp and solid black, with LOVE and LIFE set in a heavier weight for emphasis. The photograph is black and white and shows the tattoo on a shoulder and upper arm, with a slight sheen on the skin.

Lettering Upper arm Word Lettering Love Life Heart Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, the lot of you, and mind the damp on the log. My grandmother's grandmother knew the edge of Hollin Wood the way you know your own teeth, and she said there was a crossroads in there where four paths met and nobody ever walked straight through. Each path had a word cut into the bark of the oak that stood at its heart. FIERCE on the north, STRONG on the south, DEEP to the west, and LOVE in the middle, cut so deep the blacksmith's daughter swore the tree bled sap for a week.

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Now, the village folk went in to that crossroads for their troubles. A miller's boy lost his sheep, and he stood at SWEET and found them grazing where he'd never think to look. A widow asked for wide country to put her grief in, and the wood gave her WIDE and WILD together, and she came out with a hedge of wild roses and no bitterness left in her hands. They came out changed, and nobody ever asked what the words had cost the oak.

Mind, the last of the tellers said the words weren't in the wood at all. They were the people who walked it, pressing their own names into the bark with their thumbs. Furious, waking, hearts, to life, that's what they called themselves when they came home at dusk and lit the hearths. So if you go into Hollin Wood tonight, don't take the path that's worn smooth. Take the one with the scratches, and say the words aloud as you pass.