I like that my website is unremarkable in appearance.

It wants your attention as badly as ones better designed. It craves your love as much. It needs you.

But it wants to win you on its merits.

Perhaps you shall think,

aha, a website too dignified for SEO or self-promotion,

charm hiding in its minimalism —

there’s something for me here.

Perhaps you’ll notice the lack of ads

wonder about this website’s revenue model

and conclude, correctly, that it isn’t profit it seeks

but you —

you, you, only you

not a million of you, not a fanbase, but just the one

a connection between us you’re feeling a bit now, too, I pray

as you reach the end of this electric little sentence

wondering — as I do — what might come next.

Answer: a metaphor.

Walking on a beach, you stoop to pick up a shell

on the ground there, in the sand

turn it over in your fingers admiring it

you have it now

but in its way it also has you

it was waiting for you to pass this way

longing for your touch

wishing to explore you, too, and now

it cannot believe its luck in what it has found.