Before we rise, we must fall

If you are to believe my quest for you, if she is to believe my quest for her — is it too impudent even to address you, my always-interlocutor, my only friend? — if you are to believe, I must speak honestly. And yet honesty may drive you away. Yet only by the hardest paths are any of us to be saved.
I believe this.
Do I believe this?
I am inviting you, perhaps, onto a cruel pilgrimage with me. But there will be joy later. I have no evidence nor reasons for this, but I believe.
I wake up at night and realize I am contemplating methods of suicide. I didn't start the train of thought; it was going on already and waking, I noticed it like hearing a TV playing in the next room and gradually catching the words.
A rope tied to the banisters of the new house. Something about cars and asphyxiation? I've forgotten the details. A trip to the sports and outdoors store, a handgun and bullets, hollow points if I can get them, everything taken care of by tonight.
I bundle up some will power and put myself back under. Sleep.
Couple hours later.
Same waking, same plans. A jump off the overlook on the west brow of Lookout Mountain, the Sunset Rock. Get up a bit of a run, if I'm afraid I'll lose courage at the brink.
A half a dozen plastic grocery bags — redundancy — duct taped around my neck.
I try to shut the plans up.
Another night, another sleep.
Painted concrete walls and the klaxon's going off and we're tumbling off our narrow metal bunks because the war's started. I'd forgotten I was a soldier and now I stumble into someone else's tunic, boots and gear, but forget my trousers. I'm jacked-up and bare-hairy-legged when First Sergeant comes through. But he doesn't noticed; it's turning into a carnival. Four soldiers, not one older than 20, line their heads up as if for some kind of selfie and the first one opens her mouth and shoots herself in the mouth, killing all four, and they are laughing.
The other soldiers, men and women, all young, are suiciding all around us. No daylight, no window, just glaring fluorescent and the klaxon sounding.
A hole opens like an anus, a cave, and down I dive, escaping or following orders, and land in a sixteenth-century garden with a big house at one end and all manner of atrocities taking place in the shrubberies.
Next waking.
Next sleep.
Next waking.
I'm down under 120 pounds and falling and it's a relief because when I lose my period, usually around 110 pounds, it'll take the edge off my emotions a bit. That's happened before.
It's all happened before.
I don't want to die.
And yet so far VSED seems like the least traumatic to my kids; Mom dying of "feeling poorly" or "being sick" will be easier than a grisly scene.
I don't want to die but the happy person, the witty person, the one who cared where she lived or what happened to her or whether people spoke kindly to her, was created by you and for you and through you, and now she's gone and I can't find her any more.
The old man curses me and the young man yells at me and the boys speak contemptuously, too. And I am the person now who hears this and does not mind. I feel vague, I laugh and apologize, I forget directions and how to add numbers. A figure from a sit-com, the foolish vague housewife who really deserves the abuse.
If there was more —
Was there more?
I was only ever your creation.
I can't find her any more.
There's no one here but monsters and ghosts and if only you come look at me again, the fragments will reassemble and I'll come back to life.

Did I hide this because I'd forgotten it? Because only a sadist would share it with someone she loves? Because the self you created for me was brand-new and had never known pain?

We will come back. We will come back together.
You are busy and happy but you are here, too. You remember it enough to fear it.
Turning your face to the sun won't hide it.
We are here together and we are leading each other, stumbling —

But perhaps not. Perhaps you are becoming happy and perfect, somewhere else. I'm holding your hand but you're no more present than the dead chimp its mother carries, head lolling, until the eyes sink and the flesh rots.

There's more. There's worse. This is still the descent.

It's all right. You don't have to come here. Wait a little while, and I will come to you.