I’ve been the girl who knows exactly how the fire started because we both had our hands on the gasoline. You know that moment when you’re fighting in the kitchen and you can feel the relationship falling apart in real time, but instead of walking away you say the one thing guaranteed to make it worse? That moment when you both know you’re destroying something that used to be good and you do it anyway? Mia Matayoshi’s ‘the way we were’ lives in that exact space—the guilty recognition that you didn’t just watch the flames, you fucking fed them. This showed up in my rotation on a random Tuesday and suddenly I’m back in every argument I should’ve ended differently, every text I should’ve left unsent, every door I should’ve closed instead of leaving cracked open for one more round of demolition. Loving him was playing with fire, and when he needed gasoline I grabbed the fucking can.
The production on this? Sultry R&B-infused pop that wraps around you slow and deliberate. Mia’s vocals come in soft, almost too intimate, like she’s whispering confessions she knows she’ll regret in the morning. Tell me, when I’m not around, do you ever think of me hits right at the beginning, and it’s already too late to pretend you’re unaffected. She’s asking the question we all ask when we’re lying to ourselves about being fine. Then she drops Do you know that my brain is on fire, and you were the one with the lighter and fuck, there it is—the admission that you handed someone the matches and watched them burn your whole life down.
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That line alone deserves its own therapy session. The tension in her delivery makes it feel dangerous, seductive even, admitting culpability while still craving the person who helped destroy everything. I’ve experienced that firsthand with an ex. We weren’t in love, we were in demolition mode, and the wreckage still sounded worth it.
The chorus spirals into this desperate plea. Will the rain fall and take it away, will the snow melt and blanket the flames, will the rain pour and take it away, or could our tears just flood the place—she’s cycling through rain, snow, tears, anything that might wash away what they did. Rain to wash it away, snow to smother the flames, fog to obscure the truth—it’s all avoidance wrapped in poetic imagery. I get it completely. I don’t chase closure. I chase chaos that kisses back, and this whole section feels like waiting for nature to clean up the mess instead of dealing with the fact that you both struck the damn match. Even her tears become part of the escape plan, one more thing that might wash away the damage you caused together.
Then comes the bridge, where the guilt really settles in. And I might have spilled some fuel, and I might have passed you the fuse—Mia’s owning her role in the collapse without making it sound clinical or performative. You set the match, I struck it. Teamwork. The way she delivers I’d lie if I told you that we’re both okay let’s try and take it back feels like the last-ditch attempt to rewrite history, to pretend there’s a version of this relationship that could’ve survived if you’d just made different choices.
Slowly the clock on the wall starts to show me, we’re running out of time, and I bet it’s alright for you, least the ashes aren’t as cruel—this section wrecked me. Holy shit, there’s something visceral about watching time tick down on something you’re still clinging to while the other person has already moved on. Call it heartbreak if you want. I call it recreational self-destruction. She’s standing in the ruins asking when the fog clears will the flowers bloom, if snow melts will the sun come through because hope is a stubborn bitch, even when you know better.
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Mia Matayoshi—a singer, songwriter, and dancer who grew up between Okinawa and Hong Kong before landing in San Francisco—channels all that movement, all that cultural fluidity, into music that refuses to sit still emotionally. Her influences pull from R&B, pop, and EDM, creating these tracks that reflect personal life experiences with zero filter. You can hear it in ‘the way we were’—this is someone who’s lived through the burn and decided to make art out of the scar tissue instead of pretending it never happened.
The track circles back to to the way we were over and over, this haunting repetition that feels less like nostalgia and more like an incantation. They didn’t fall apart—they combusted. There’s a difference. And Mia’s singing about it with this sultry heat that makes the destruction sound goddamn seductive. The denial, the guilt, the shaky hope that maybe you could rewind to when it felt effortless—it’s all here, wrapped in production that sounds expensive and feels reckless.
I’m still the girl who knows how the fire started, still standing in the kitchen aftermath realizing I helped pour the gasoline. The difference now? I have a soundtrack that understands complicity looks a hell of a lot sexier than it should. Mia Matayoshi gets what I couldn’t admit back then—that walking away clean meant letting go of the burn, and I wasn’t ready to do that.
