That makes me think of the line by Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility when her sister asks if her jilting lover had not told her he loved her.... "Yes... no...it was always implied but never openly expressed."

We need to know what are hopes and what are realities.   I can't take any more of their actions saying one thing while their words imply, not truly openly declare? another.   I have now been unpleasantly surprised at how many years that would surely be the year for poet's success see it's decline instead,  but this year has been the first time I feel afraid, not just disappointed.