Love Song for Love Songs

Love Song for Love Songs

By Rafael Campo 

A golden age of love songs and we still

can’t get it right. Does your kiss really taste

like butter cream? To me, the moon’s bright face

was neither like a pizza pie nor full;

the Beguine began, but my eyelid twitched.

“No more I love you’s,” someone else assured

us, pouring out her heart, in love (of course)—

what bothers me the most is that high-pitched,

undone whine of “Why am I so alone?”

Such rueful misery is closer to

the truth, but once you turn the lamp down low,

you must admit that he is still the one,

and baby, baby he makes you so dumb

you sing in the shower at the top of your lungs.

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Here we are, edging toward Valentine’s Day—cards already in the stores, playlists full of old love songs, and that familiar pressure to feel something cinematic. For queer folks especially, love has often arrived through borrowed lyrics and secondhand metaphors. We learned the language of romance from straight pop songs and classic standards that never quite named us, yet somehow still found their way into our hearts. This week feels like a good moment to sit with a poem that knows that tension well: the joy of love songs, and the gentle skepticism that comes with actually living love.

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About the Poem

“Love Song for Love Songs” is a poem that both adores and distrusts the clichés of romance. Campo opens by acknowledging the abundance of love songs—a golden age—and immediately undercuts them. The metaphors we’ve been fed (“pizza pie,” “butter cream,” the perfect moon) feel exaggerated, even a little silly, when held up against real experience. Love, the poem suggests, is rarely that tidy or sweet.

What replaces those polished metaphors is something messier and more honest: loneliness, self-doubt, the ache behind the question “Why am I so alone?” Campo admits that this rueful misery may be closer to the truth than any glossy refrain. And yet—and this is the poem’s quiet triumph—love still sneaks in. Lower the lights. Admit that he is still the one. Admit how foolish and undone love can make you.

The final image is perfect in its ordinariness: singing in the shower, loudly and without shame. Not because love has become poetic or profound, but because it has made you human, ridiculous, and alive. For LGBTQ+ readers, that feels especially resonant. Our love stories have often been private, improvised, or half-hidden, but the joy—unguarded and a little dumb—rings just as true.

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About the Poet

Rafael Campo is an American poet and physician whose work frequently explores the intersections of the body, illness, desire, and identity. Openly gay, Campo has written with remarkable clarity about queer love, vulnerability, and the ways language both reveals and conceals truth. His poetry often blends pop culture, medicine, and intimate emotional insight, making space for tenderness without sentimentality.

Campo’s voice is especially important in LGBTQ+ literature because it refuses grandiosity. Instead, it honors the small, lived moments—awkwardness, doubt, pleasure—that make love real. In poems like this one, he reminds us that even if love songs get it wrong, love itself still finds a way to be sung.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, this poem feels like permission: permission to roll your eyes at the clichés, to acknowledge the loneliness, and still—maybe especially still—to sing.

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Not Quite Awake Yet

It was so hard to get up this morning. I went to bed on time and didn’t wake up during the night, but it still felt like I needed a few more hours of sleep. Maybe it’s because I had to go to work, or maybe it’s because it’s –7 degrees outside and the bed felt especially safe and warm.

Some mornings just carry that extra weight—the kind where your body is awake before your spirit has caught up. I know I’ll make it through the day. I have a meeting this afternoon that I can’t miss or reschedule, and responsibilities have a way of pulling us forward even when we’d rather stay still for a little while longer.

At some point I’ll feel more awake. Coffee and the morning news will come first, easing me into the day, and then a hot shower before getting ready for work. It doesn’t all have to happen at once.

I hope everyone has a gentle start to their week and finds small moments of warmth—whether that’s a hot drink, a quiet moment, or just the reassurance that we don’t have to be fully “on” right away.

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No Favorites

“My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” 

—James 2:1

James doesn’t ease into this passage. He comes right out and names the problem: favoritism. He paints a vivid scene—one person dressed in fine clothes is welcomed, honored, given the best seat. Another, poor and unimpressive, is pushed aside, told to stand or sit on the floor. James calls this what it is: making distinctions, becoming judges with evil thoughts.

On the surface, this sounds like a warning about wealth. But beneath that is something broader and more uncomfortable. James is talking about how quickly we decide who is worthy of attention, dignity, and care—and who is not.

For gay men, this hits close to home.

Our community often claims to value inclusivity, but in practice we frequently reward youth, beauty, muscles, and a very specific idea of desirability. Older gay men are ignored. Average bodies are overlooked. Anyone who doesn’t fit the polished image of the “ideal man” becomes invisible—or worse, quietly dismissed. We may not say it out loud, but our actions speak clearly: you matter less.

I know I’m guilty of this. All you have to do is look at the pictures I post. Before I even came out to myself, I told myself that I liked beautiful, muscular men because I wanted to look like that—not because I was gay. That story helped me avoid a harder truth. It also revealed how deeply I had absorbed the belief that beauty equals worth.

James doesn’t let us off the hook by calling this a harmless preference. He says plainly:

“Have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?” (James 2:4)

That’s uncomfortable language. But James isn’t interested in shaming us—he’s interested in freeing us from a system of value that is not God’s.

God’s economy works differently. James reminds us that God consistently chooses those the world overlooks:

“Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom?” (James 2:5)

When we privilege only the beautiful, the young, the desired, we mirror the very hierarchies that once crushed us. We recreate exclusion while insisting we’re liberated.

James points us back to what he calls “the royal law”:

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (James 2:8)

Love, here, isn’t abstract. It’s concrete. It shows up in who we notice, who we listen to, who we make room for, and who we dismiss without a second thought. Favoritism—even subtle, unspoken favoritism—breaks that law.

This passage ends with both warning and hope:

“For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.” (James 2:13)

Mercy triumphs. Not beauty. Not youth. Not desirability. Mercy.

This isn’t about never appreciating beauty. It’s about recognizing how easily we confuse attraction with value—and how often that confusion leads us to overlook the sacredness in bodies and lives that don’t fit our ideals.

The invitation here isn’t guilt. It’s honesty. It’s asking ourselves: Who am I giving the best seat to? And who am I asking to stand off to the side?

God shows no partiality. And every time we choose mercy over judgment, we step a little closer to seeing one another—and ourselves—the way God already does.

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Moment of Zen: Reading

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An In-Between Kind of Day

I’m so glad today is a work-from-home day. Tomorrow I’ll be in early for a special event, so having this quieter morning feels like a small gift.

Since I’m working on Saturday, I had yesterday off—and because I’m working from home today, I’ll still need to head in early to get everything set up for the program I’ll be doing. It’s one of those in-between days: not exactly a day off, not quite a full workday either.

I only wish today’s weather was what we’re expecting tomorrow. Today will warm up to about 23 degrees—the mildest it’s been in weeks. Tomorrow, though, is a very different story. We’re under a severe weather advisory, with wind chills expected to drop 20 to 30 below zero. At least the museum should be warm.

I have a few things to take care of while working from home today. Tomorrow’s program should wrap up by around 10 a.m., and after that, the rest of the day will be paperwork and taking things easy until it’s time to head home.

Some days are about bracing against the cold. Others are about finding the small comforts where you can—and today feels a bit like that.

* 🚨 * 🚨 * Red Alert * 🚨 * 🚨 *

🖖Possible spoiler ahead…

Starfleet Academy Update

Y’all know I’m a Star Trek fan, so you’ll just have to get used to at least five more weeks of me sharing my thoughts on Starfleet Academy. My favorite Star Trek series has always been Deep Space Nine. It’s one of the most complex and intriguing of all the Treks, and I’ve watched the entire series dozens of times.

I think we all have a movie or TV show we return to when we need something familiar—mindless comfort, a pick-me-up, or just a way to quiet whatever’s rattling around in our heads. For me, that show is Deep Space Nine.

So when I read that this week’s Starfleet Academy episode was being described as a “love letter to Deep Space Nine,” I was—needless to say—very excited.

There were definitely things I loved about the episode. The little bit of gay drama between Jay-Den and Kyle was fun, and Darem’s jealousy was about as subtle as a photon torpedo. Drag queen Jackie Cox appears, Tawny Newsome guest stars, and we get to see Cirroc Lofton again—who has grown into quite a handsome man.

That said… there is one thing about the episode that genuinely pissed me off.

If anyone’s curious what that was, let me know in the comments. I’m happy to answer there, or I may save it and talk more about it on Monday—once everyone who wants to watch the episode has had time to do so.

🖖

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