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What can I do but stand with my mouth open, no sound emerging? My lips move and I wave my arms making gestures from the other side of the glass, which I can__ penetrate._people can speak out of anything, though the struggle takes years. The problem is, whatever I say about the present feels false-nothing contains it all, or catches the depth of things, or their terrible one-dimensionality.What am I living on? Someone said the other day, __hat old irrepressible-impossible- hope._ And I thought no, this doesn__ feel like hope. But maybe that__ what hope is, no shining thing but a kind of sustenance, plain as bread, the ordinary thing that feeds us. How could we confuse this optimism, when it has nothing to do with expecting things to get better?Hope has to do with continuing, that__ all_I can imagine now, where I couldn__ before, this long erosion of faith, this steady drawing from one__ strength, until what__ left is tenuous, transparent.
Mark Doty Heaven's Coast: A Memoir
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What can I do but stand with my mouth open, no sound emerging? My lips move and I wave my arms making gestures from the other side of the glass, which I can__ penetrate._people can speak out of anything, though the struggle takes years. The problem is, whatever I say about the present feels false-nothing contains it all, or catches the depth of things, or their terrible one-dimensionality.What am I living on? Someone said the other day, __hat old irrepressible-impossible- hope._ And I thought no, this doesn__ feel like hope. But maybe that__ what hope is, no shining thing but a kind of sustenance, plain as bread, the ordinary thing that feeds us. How could we confuse this optimism, when it has nothing to do with expecting things to get better?Hope has to do with continuing, that__ all_I can imagine now, where I couldn__ before, this long erosion of faith, this steady drawing from one__ strength, until what__ left is tenuous, transparent.
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Mark Doty

Heaven's Coast: A Memoir

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