Tone in Laurena Segura's "Permafrost"

Providing a tone of lonely regret, Laurena Segura, in her song "Permafrost" uses constant simile, arboreal imagery, and internal monologue to express her feelings of heartbreak. Feeling ignored, the speaker feels she is frozen and unnoticed. The song's emotion shifts as it goes on. In the beginning, the speaker feels desperate, but the desperation shifts to sadness, then to anger. The song expresses the speaker's thoughts in which she points out different events to shift her mood. Beginning with fiction, the speaker finds herself in the arctic, focusing only on her emotions, ignoring the events that occurred. Next, she begins recalling her experiences. She finds herself feeling lonely due to them. Finally, the speaker gathers herself and points blame. She begins to feel angry at her love interest for her loneliness and regrets her previous feelings.

When the song begins, the listener is immediately confronted with a simile that will extend throughout the song. The first line states "Sometimes I feel like I'm permafrost." as the song goes on, the speaker describes her feelings past that, mostly with the same simile. She continues with "alone in tundra and really lost" Later in the song, she describes her bus ride as "through the boreal forest and the winter frost.", after using normal terms leading up to that. the simile switches in and out a few times during the song, expressing her shift in mood. 

One of the biggest themes in this song is forests. The imagery is centered mainly around that specific area. The speaker uses permafrost as a symbol of herself, describing the tundra and cold forests as the song goes on. She states that "in the taiga everybody knows that you shouldn't wander where the hemlock grows" she puts a person's actions into a plant. The setting comes back when she says "you left my heart on the forest floor. The arboreal imagery is  a prominent theme in this piece. 

The story of this experience is told through a series of the speaker's thoughts. Her first person point of view is used throughout the entire song in order to express her experience to the listener. Recollections such as that in the verse beginning with "I remember when we rode the bus" are plentiful throughout the song. Through these thoughts, the listener is able to gather that the speaker is suffering from heartbreak. Point of view is necessary in order to hold this song together.

In this song, Laurena Segura tells a story of heartbreak and a feeling of loneliness. She expresses herself with a first person point of view,  shifting her tone from sad and heartbroken to angry and heartbroken. The speaker, by the end, is telling her person of interest that they are "such a waste of time" During this shift, the speaker uses devices such as simile, imagery, and point of view to reinforce her feelings. Meanwhile, a tone of lonely regret comes forth.