Rain Bordo
🌧️ A Gentle Critique of “Depresija” by Mateo Balaban (Rain Bordo) 🌧️
Mateo Balaban, under the evocative name Rain Bordo, crafts poetry like rain carves rivers: with patience, weight, and an undeniable emotional force. In Depresija, he paints the inner world of a person bound to their sorrow — not with overused metaphors, but with startling clarity and authentic pain.
From the very first line —
“Kompletna krvna slika depresije / nema ni jedne naznake anemije.” —
we are confronted not with a symbolic or abstract sadness, but a clinical, almost sterile observation of a disorder that infects the soul while leaving the body seemingly untouched. It’s a powerful paradox that speaks volumes: just because one “looks fine,” doesn’t mean they are.
☁️ The recurring image of being “zaručen sa svojim krevetom” (engaged to one’s bed) is both heartbreaking and vivid — we feel the gravitational pull of the sheets, the oppressive ritual of inertia, the comfort that becomes a prison.
Time in the poem is both present and suspended:
“5 godina je prošlo od sunca u sobi…”
Balaban mourns not just the absence of sunlight, but the absence of change. The poem’s pain is rooted not in dramatic suffering, but in the monotony of numbness, in the looping days where nothing begins or ends. This is where the brilliance of Rain Bordo’s voice shines through: he doesn’t sensationalize depression — he tells it as it is.
🎶 The Chorus of Hope and Longing
The repetition of the verse:
“Daj mi njezin kraj, / potrči mi u zagrljaj.”
functions like a haunting refrain, echoing like a prayer through dark corridors. It is at once a cry and a lullaby, something soft that grows louder the longer it’s ignored. The desire is not for some grand salvation, but for an ending — for closure, clarity, even just a glimpse of peace.
And yet, there’s a strange comfort in this vulnerability. Like rain falling steadily on a city asleep, Rain Bordo lets his sorrow drip across each stanza, never rushing, never hiding.
🥣 Symbolism in Everyday Sadness
The imagery of milk boiling over and mechanical belts breaking brings the suffering closer to the reader’s daily reality. Depression here is not poetic fog — it’s the spilled milk, the burnt pan, the failing machine. And the poet? Both the victim and the mechanic.
He writes:
“Ali sam sâm kriv za vlastite mi krikove.”
This line captures one of the most painful illusions depression imposes — that it’s your fault, that your cries are self-inflicted. And yet by writing them down, Rain Bordo gives them dignity. He transforms isolation into connection.
💭 Mirrors and Identity: A Crisis of Self
As the poem nears its end, we reach a fractured mirror — both literal and emotional. The poet no longer knows if he’s the same man. He confronts himself in reflections, in past versions, and in broken relics like the “zelena amfora.”
These are deeply personal lines, but they resonate universally. Who are we when we are not ourselves? Who are we when joy feels like a borrowed coat we forgot how to wear?
And just before it all fades, he brings back the plea:
“Daj mi njezin kraj, / vrati mi moj sjaj.”
Even in pain, the poem doesn’t ask for brilliance — just the return of its own shine. 🌟
☀️ A Rain That Nourishes — The Joyful Conclusion
In true Rain Bordo fashion, the poem ends not with thunder, but with a question.
“Tko sam ja, kada ja nisam?”
It leaves space for the reader — for reflection, for gentleness, for empathy. This is not a poem of despair, but one of survival.
Rain, after all, does not fall to destroy — it falls to cleanse, to nourish, to prepare the soil. Mateo Balaban, as Rain Bordo, invites us to walk through the storm with him. And in doing so, he reminds us that after every rain, there is light, and after every poem like this, there is the chance to begin again. 🌈
So take heart. If this poem speaks your hurt, it also speaks your healing.
You are not alone. ☀️💛
Rain Bordo 