Forget angels and butterflies — the latest trend in tattoos is words. Check out Flavorwire’s roundup for the best literary quotes ever tattooed, for some awesome examples. We also love their feature on celebrities with literary tattoos — did you know that both Lena Dunham and Elliott Smith inked Ferdinand the Bull on their arms?
Anyway, we here at EMandLO.com decided that the world needs more sensual literary tattoos. After all, this is your own body we’re talking about. And we’re sure there are plenty of people who get a kind of kinky thrill from the pain of a tattoo. So, to balance out all those “Southern Comfort” tattoos in the crotch region, here are some highbrow sexy words to ink on your body…
1. “Whatever happens with us, your body will haunt mine” — Adrienne Rich
2. “this is that taste” — Adrienne Rich
3. “lightly and you utterly will become with infinite care the poem which i do not write” — e.e. cummings
4. “Lady, i will touch you with my mind” — e.e. cummings
5. “to break is to be sanctified. to find in the body a safehouse where all your monsters get to be raucous”
— Marty McConnell
6. “The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones” — Walt Whitman
7. “O I say now these are the soul!” — Walt Whitman
8. “all falls aside but myself and it” — Walt Whitman
9. “please master drive me thy vehicle, body of love drops, sweat fuck body of tenderness” — Allen Ginsberg
10. “in your rhythm thrill-plunge & pull-back-bounce & push down” — Allen Ginsberg
11. “Eat me, drink me, love me” — Christina Rossetti
12. “Like a vessel at the launch When its last restraint is gone” — Christina Rossetti
13. “Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball” — Andrew Marvel
14. “You are the one I am lit for” — Lucille Clifton
15. “Licence my roving hands, and let them go, Before, behind, between, above, below.” — John Donne
16. “All fact contact, the attack and the interlock Of tongues, the charms of arms.” — W.H. Auden
17. “And when I left you, I was so on fire” — Catullus
18. “how they glowed, remember, in the eyes gazing at you; how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body” — Constantine Cavafy
19. “Let’s shut up and dance. Let’s shut up and grind and get sore.” — Krystal Languell
20. “You do shots of bourbon, I’ll pretend I’m Nick Cave.” — Krystal Languell
MORE LIKE THIS ON EMandLO.com:
- Sexy Poem of the Day: “Romeo + Juliet Poem”
- My Rose-Wet Cave: The Great Love Lines of Adrienne Rich
- Truly Mortifying: Overwrought Teenage Anti-Choice Poetry