♪♪
-I am an only child, and I was born to a two-mom household.
My moms wanted to have four kids,
but they liked to joke
that I was the medical bill of four kids.
So, I was born with something called VACTERL.
It basically means you're missing a bunch of stuff.
It's congenital,
so they don't know if it's genetic
♪♪
-♪ My bones are always tired ♪
♪ From the nothing that I feed them ♪
♪ I'm so sick of starving ♪
♪ That I swallow my own feelings ♪
I've always been drawn to music.
I, um, was four
when I wrote my first song called "The Pizza Song."
It's about pizza.
And I really wanted to play piano.
And when I was five, I begged and begged to play,
and because of my fingers
and I was so fresh out of having hand surgery
that my moms were really scared that if I started
and I couldn't do it, that I would get really discouraged.
Um, but then my other mom got me a piano in secret
and let me start learning.
Um, but I've always been interested more in composing
because I think it gives me a way to feel my feelings
that I wouldn't normally, I don't know, put into the world.
♪ I don't know how to say this with a smile ♪
♪ It's closing time, and I'm still falling to pieces ♪
♪ I'm tired of acting like it's alright ♪
♪ There are once-in-a-lifetime kinds of bleeding ♪
♪ Of course, I'm scared. I'd be lying if I wasn't ♪
♪ They sat me down, said I've got problems by the dozen ♪
♪ Drew a map of what they want from me ♪
♪ To cut me open, be light as a feather ♪
♪ Break my bones, then put them back together ♪
♪ You'd be asleep, Wouldn't feel a thing ♪
♪ But I feel it all ♪
♪ I feel it all ♪
The Moth StorySLAM was actually an idea
that my physical therapist hatched me,
because I was telling her these stories,
and she was like, "You know, this is crazy.
Like, this is good stuff."
And she knows I'm a performer and I do music,
and she said,
"Have you ever thought about storytelling at The Moth?
They do these StorySLAMs in Seattle?"
I am about to be in a StorySLAM,
which I just learned is a competition.
I did not read the fine print.
I have a five-minute, forty-second story
about a surgery
that I went through technically 19 months,
but who's counting, ago.
And I have my scar out so that people can believe me,
because I am really scared of that.
And I've never shared this story that publicly,
outside of writing music about it.
But I am trying to embrace it,
because my therapist told me this was more, I think,
what did she say,
like, it was a better modality than, um...
screaming into my pillow at night.
So here we go.
-And please, keep your applause going.
Keep it going. Keep it going for Willa.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Sometimes in life, you're the fruit,
and sometimes in life, you're the ninja.
And I, for the past two years, have been the fruit.
I think what I went through was really traumatic,
and everyone keeps telling me, like,
"The fact that you survived should be enough."
And it's not for me.
It's not enough. I want to express art.
I want to tell stories.
I want to make people feel less alone,
because of what I've gone through.
I don't think
that surviving is a good enough reason to be here.
So I hopped on what would become
the weirdest Zoom call of my life.
It was a team of surgeons
who had a photo pulled up of my insides,
and then a model of what they wanted to do to my insides.
They proposed a jejunal interposition, which,
if you're unfamiliar,
I was -- is where they take a portion of your jejunum,
which is your small intestines,
right around here,
and they pull it up and make it your esophagus.
Later that day, we're in the car.
The head surgeon calls me.
He goes, "Hey, Willa, we have a spot on Tuesday of next week.
I highly suggest you take it."
And I said, and I quote,
"But I'm going to be in Vegas with my boyfriend."
[ Crowd laughs ]
'Cause I was going to be in Vegas with my boyfriend,
and he says, "Well, Vegas can wait."
And he kept saying, over and over again,
"I don't have a crystal ball,
but I think you need to take this chance.
You need to have the surgery."
Six days and a will later, I didn't go to Vegas.
I make it straight from the roulette table
to the operating table. And two months after that, I asked him,
I said, "Hey, I know you said you didn't have a crystal ball,
but we're in the future now."
What did you mean when you said I should take the slot?
And he said we couldn't prove it until we went in
and removed your tissue.
"But you were dying from the inside out.
And if you had waited till January,
you wouldn't have been here."
[ Cheers and applause ]
My boyfriend and I just finally moved in together.
We met in college, and he was a grade below me.
And so he had a year to finish.
And then he was going to move to Seattle.
And, like, within three months of him moving to Seattle,
I had to move back to Boston to have surgery.
And I told him, I was like,
"I don't mind if you leave, like,
I will not think you're a dick.
It's a perfectly reasonable thing to have happen."
Like, we had been together when the first surgery happened,
I think about four months.
And I was like,
"This, to me, is a love that could go forever.
But also, I understand that rarely are breakups about love.
They're usually circumstance.
And I knew my circumstance was about to be insane,
and I couldn't predict what was going to happen next."
And he ended up visiting me as often as he could.
We spent two Thanksgivings in the hospital together.
There was a night, and I had this infection in my chest,
and he sat by my bedside the whole night,
holding my hand and putting peppermint oil to my nose.
And I remember that I didn't understand what was happening,
and all I was thinking was,
"Now is the time I can get him to listen to Hamilton,
like, I can guilt him." [ Chuckles ]
So I made him listen to all of Hamilton.
And, um, that night,
the children on either side of me in the ICU died,
and I didn't know it.
And so death, like, split around me, and I...
It's a weird feeling.
It's survivor's guilt, even though I have nothing
to do with any of it.
And also, I'm so glad Zach was there.
I think he helped keep my spirits up,
helped keep me alive.
And yeah, we're finally living together, and it's amazing.
♪ I can stand a lie that's been proven true ♪
♪ But I don't want to keep standing ♪
♪ If it's not next to you ♪
♪ When times turn bare, that's just what they do ♪
♪ But your magic trick is making me feel brand new to this ♪
-Listen to Willow's music on Spotify.
Search for Willa Barnett.
Check out Willa's videos on YouTube.
And, as winner of The Moth StorySLAM,
Willa will compete
in their regional StorySLAM later this year.
Stay tuned for details.