Saturday, June 7th, 2025

Hello Dream,

It’s me again—Besa.

Do you remember me?

Do you remember the girl who once whispered to the stars about you, who scribbled your name into every corner of her notebooks, hoping you’d come true? I was small then, but my hope was large. I believed in you with everything I had. My first poems were about peace—not because I knew it well, but because I longed for it. I dreamed of a world where children of all colors, all creeds, walked side by side into classrooms, not conflict zones. Where a girl could learn, and speak, and be—without fear.

I dreamed of a world that felt kind.

But one night, like a shadow crawling over moonlight, you began to slip away from me.
And like a nightmare, Dream—you came undone.

It started with the books. I remember standing outside Prishtina’s National Library, too young to understand, too old to forget. Soldiers hauled our books by the truckload—sacred stories, language, history—everything that made us us. They were taking them to burn, to erase. I turned to Babi and asked why, and he told me gently, firmly, with pain in his voice, “The best way to kill a nation is to take away its education.”

I didn’t know then that books were the first line of defense against tyranny. That stories were our shield. That ink could become resistance. That a pen—yes, even mine—could be a sword.

Next, the guns came. I woke in the middle of the night to the metallic rhythm of machine guns. The enemy had surrounded our little barrack—our home, which sat next to the same library where the books once breathed. They weren’t just demolishing walls, Dream—they were trying to demolish our lives. They said they wanted to build a church where our home once stood. But I couldn’t understand—why a church, Dream, when the world already had too many buildings for prayer and not enough for peace?

What we needed were schools, Dream. Not more monuments to division.
Not more religion carved in stone while children’s futures were scattered like rubble.
I remember thinking—Were these soldiers ever children? Did they ever dream? Was it ever their hope to grow up and burn books, to leave children without homes?

Then, they closed our schools. And still, we refused to stop learning.
I walked for hours to reach a hidden room—a makeshift classroom donated by someone with a heart big enough to resist the silence. We had no books. Only memory, only breath. Our teacher dictated everything. We took notes like they were gold. One day, I asked Babi, trembling, “But what if they massacre us? What if they find us there, and they kill us all?”

And he said, “Then you will be with your friends. But we cannot let them take our education.”

That was the day I knew:
My fight would be the pen.
My revolution would be words.
My weapon would be the truth, spoken bravely, written boldly.

And then—Dream, oh Dream—one day, you showed up again.
A plane ticket. A new life. A country where Freedom of Speech wasn’t a dream, it was a right. The United States of America—where I thought my words could finally fly.

And I brought them with me, packed under my arm like armor. Notebooks. Pens. Hope.
I told myself I would write the stories that needed telling. That I would echo the voices that had been silenced. That I would let my pen bleed so others could feel seen.

But then—Dream—I froze. I shared something online and the world laughed. Or dismissed. Or turned its back. And slowly, I shut down.
My words went quiet.

I filled notebook after notebook, still beginning each one with “Hello Dream,” as if I couldn’t let you go, as if I was afraid to. But I never let them go beyond those pages.
Each word I wrote, I buried like a secret.
Each notebook I filled, I closed as if I were closing a door to the world.
And I began to believe that maybe my words were meant to die within those pages.

But they weren’t.
They were meant to fly, like the Albanian eagle above the Shar Mountains.
They were meant to reach someone. To heal. To help. To hold.

And then—again, as if you weren’t done with me yet—I found myself at My Story Cottage, flipping through those buried pages, and I remembered.
This gift is not mine to keep.
It is mine to give.

So here I am, Dream.
Not just writing to you.
Writing through you.
To the world.

I don’t know what will come of it.
I don’t know who will read this.
But I know this:

It is time.

Time to open the notebooks.
Time to set the words free.
Time to let the wind carry them wherever they must go.

Maybe they will land in the hands of a soldier who chooses to lay down his weapon and pick up a book.
Maybe they will inspire a child to dream again.
Maybe they will plant something in the heart of someone who has long forgotten what hope feels like.

I don't know, Dream.
But I do know what I must do.

I must fight for you—by setting you free.
So here we are.

Pen in hand. Pages open.
Voice steady. Heart bare.

Let’s say hello to the world.

With all my soul,
Besa