I’ve always loved music. As a little girl, I could spend hours going through peoples CD collections, sampling them with my little battery-operated CD player. If you showed me a stack, rack or box of CDs, I was in heaven.

Then, I was 8 (2011), I got my first iPod for Christmas, an iPod Touch with 32GB of memory! The sticker said it was from Santa, but ‘Step’ got a package in the mail from Apple three weeks earlier, so I knew who it was really from. Upon opening it, I rushed upstairs to my older brother’s computer, plugged it in, carefully copied the username and password for the family iTunes account (from a wrinkled post-it note), and the world was never the same.

It never occurred to me that my parents could see all of my playlists and that they were automatically downloaded to their devices - like my break-up playlist, inspired by Antoine, my French-boy fifth grade crush. It didn’t work out because he didn’t have an email account and our recess times didn’t line up, but my playlist helped me through it.

I could burn playlists to CDs and exchange them with friends - or gift them to middle school boys who I hoped to amaze with my awesome musical tastes. There’s an art to the playlist that involves controlling pace and mood - every playlist was both a gift and a seduction.

Today we have Spotify with its unlimited streaming of every song ever made - on demand. Exchanging playlists, these days, is as easy as pressing "Share" and typing the first few letters of a friend’s or lover's username.

Like most of my girlfriends, I consider myself a playlist queen and as I continue to work this career path I’ve chosen, regardless of what's weighing me down, I know I can turn to my playlists to push me through. The band ‘The Narcissist Cookbook ’ assures me that my shocking honesty is fun with ‘Broken People.’ ‘K. Flay’ allows me to dance-out my rage with ‘Blood in the cut’ and ‘New Move’ motivates me to keep-at-it with ‘When did we stop.’

I’ve countless Spotify playlists: one for waking up, one for writing papers, one for doing problem sets, others for walking to class, doing the laundry, for nostalgic reflection, and for embracing the astounding depth of human pain.

Of course, as time passes, I find new favorite songs and older playlists are replaced with updated ones; but thanks to the archival nature of Spotify playlist collections, all my old lists remain intact. I’ve never deleted one. Search my archives and you’d see playlists from my freshie year, when I was new here, feeling insecure and alone, or from my sophomore year when I first fell in love.

This piece is a playlist love story, about how music reflects our identities and allows us to share ourselves through the vibes, melodies and beats that move us. I think playlists have a lot in common with poetry, which uses words, phrases and imagery for similar purposes.

I have trekked scorching deserts,
leaving only temporary footprints,
upon trackless sands. Shallow etched
impressions soon erased by the wind.

Sailed upon deep ocean seas, swam
and surfed cobalt blue saline waves
skimming over colorful coral reefs.
Leaving nothing to mark my passage.

Hiked high mountain wilderness trails,
camped and slept under bright star lit
skies, decamping with not a single trace
of my transitory visit, or earthly presence.

In travel I learned meaningful values and
life lessons from people that lived in thatched
huts and never attended college or read a book.

My great grandchildren will not know me
except for some old photos and a few handed
down stories, I will not hold them, kiss their
tiny faces, or pass on anything I have learned,
that is my children's role. That will be my
lasting footprint.

This knowledge should be our goal in all
we do in our short lives. Like all living
creatures, we are but brief guest on this
earth. While we are passing through, we
should endeavor to do as little harm as
possible.

To love is to derail your path
put aside your own desires
throw yourself upon the pyre
to feed the fires that burn in someone else's heart
an act of madness from the very start
not a sacrifice, for that implies regret
yet we impale ourselves, to feel love's sting
on the reddest rose with the sharpest thorn
the sweetest pain which must be borne
a beautiful sabotage