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Rafael S. W. Rafael S. W. i(A147302 works by) (a.k.a. Rafael SW)
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 On the Guard's Decision to Shoot before She Rose Once More i "He only really loved golf. Spent his life", Rafael S. W. , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: Going Down Swinging , no. 38 2017; (p. 84-85)
1 When You Feel That Everything Is Wrong but It Isn't i "Check Facebook.", Rafael S. W. , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: Offset , no. 17 2017;
1 Your Mother Gave Birth to an Umbrella of Odd Socks i "Your father always losing the red ones. Tub leaking like god letting go", Rafael S. W. , 2017 single work poetry
— Appears in: Ear to Earth : An Anthology of Australian Poetry 2017 2017; (p. 39)
1 Teaching My Brother to Bleed Rafael S. W. , 2016 single work short story
— Appears in: Seizure [Online] , February 2016;
1 Law of Potential Freedom Rafael S. W. , 2016 single work short story
— Appears in: Going Down Swinging , no. 37 2016; (p. 152-161)
1 Lies about Space i "We have all the time in the world and there’s no such thing as time.", Rafael S. W. , 2015 single work poetry
— Appears in: Ipswich Poetry Feast 2015;
1 Pump Action Rafael S. W. , 2015 single work short story
— Appears in: Voiceworks , Winter no. 100 2015; (p. 62-68)
1 Superficial Burns i "You had ash stains of a childhood left", Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work poetry
— Appears in: Gargouille , Spring vol. 1 no. 2014; (p. 60-61)
1 Small Expectations Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work short story
— Appears in: Australian Love Stories 2014; (p. 187-197)
1 The Apocalypse for Non-Believers i "At the work barbeque they burnt the sausages and chatted about death.", Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work poetry
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , no. 46.1 2014;
1 A Language of Silence Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work short story
— Appears in: The Sleepers Almanac No. 9 2014; (p. 269)

The narrator is in the midst of relationship troubles: Mel, their deaf girlfriend, refuses to sign to them, only leaving angry post-it notes. Meanwhile, the narrator's parents are on their third re-marriage to each other, and fighting over the renovation of the house they recently bought.

Mel leaves the narrator, and the new house burns down, injuring the narrator's father. The father reveals the house was meant to be for the narrator when their parents passed on. Though Mel returns, there is a silence between them, to the point where the narrator believes they're going deaf too.
1 The Taste of Snow Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work short story
— Appears in: The Sleepers Almanac No. 9 2014; (p. 19)
1 The Half-life of Tears : Love in the Time of Thyroid Iodine Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work short story
— Appears in: Going Down Swinging , no. 35 2014; (p. 164-171)
1 Slave or Master? Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work essay
— Appears in: Voiceworks , Spring no. 98 2014; (p. 6-7) 'It was 2009 and I was standing in front of the Monash Creative Writers’ Group as their newly-elected and hardly-despotic-at-all President. I’d been talking about that weeks’ theme and then I’d told them to start writing. In a book that I’d read a few years earlier, a boy who wants to be a spy is told in order to prove himself he has to kill a chicken with a biro. The kids in my university writing group that I’d just handed pens to looked just as afraid. I cajoled them to get started, but even after being given a theme, a lot of them just looked around the room awkwardly, or simply stared into the distance.' (Introduction)
1 Throat Singing for the Socially Inept Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work essay
— Appears in: Voiceworks , Spring no. 97 2014; (p. 57-59) 'No one warned me that voices broke. There were all sorts of other veiled threats that puberty had tried to intimidate me with, like a school bully waiting to do weird things to my body - the inverse of kicking my testicles. But that sort of body damage was expected, the same way you knew what would happen when a poet tried to play football. But nothing about things actually breaking.' (Publication abstract)
1 God Could Have Dragons Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work short story
— Appears in: Award Winning Australian Writing 2014 2014; (p. 143-148)
1 The Process of Giving Back Rafael S. W. , 2014 single work poetry
— Appears in: Award Winning Australian Writing 2014 2014; (p. 44)
1 Loving Virginia i "We rolled over each other like we were on fire", Rafael S. W. , 2013 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Love Poems 2013 2013; (p. 20)
1 The God of Small Lies Rafael S. W. , 2012 single work short story
— Appears in: Famous Reporter , December no. 44 2012; (p. 186-187)
1 Deep Throat Jesus Rafael S. W. , 2012 single work short story
— Appears in: Going Down Swinging , no. 33 2012; (p. 85-89)
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