Orlando survivor: 'The guilt of feeling grateful to be alive is heavy'

One of the victims of the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub wrote a poem as she lay in a hospital bed on Monday night, writes Claire Anderson.

The 20-year-old, Patience Carter, said that ’writing is part of my healing process.’

Carter lost her friend, 18-year-old Akyra Murray, in the massacre.

If you cannot see the video below, please click here.

Carter’s poem is transcribed below in full:

The guilt of feeling grateful to be alive is heavy.

Wanting to smile about surviving but not sure if the people around you are ready.

As the world mourns, the victims killed, and viciously slain, I feel guilty about screaming about my legs in pain because I can feel nothing

Like the other 49 who weren’t so lucky to feel this pain of mine.

I never thought in a million years that this could happen.

I never thought in a million years that my eyes could witness something so tragic.

Looking at the souls leaving the bodies of individuals

Looking at the killer’s machinegun throughout my right peripheral.

Looking at the blood and debris covered on everyone’s faces

Looking at the gunman’s feet under the stall as he paces

The guilt of feeling lucky to be alive is heavy.

It’s like the weight of the ocean’s walls crushing uncontrolled by levies.

It’s like being drug through the grass with a shattered leg and thrown on the back of a Chevy.

It’s like being rushed to the hospital and told you’re going to make it when laid beside individuals whose lives were brutally taken.

The guilty of being alive is heavy.

H/T: BreakingNews.ie