We'd be pounded to splinters in a fight.

And underneath the microscope there were splinters of glass.

And how I set about that, I got some splinters of wood.

And hunger, and cold, exhausting work and poverty are what's also inside those splinters.

And I sliced the little splinters of wood with a broken shard of glass, constructed this little apartment.

It's had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor.

Those splinters and tacks feel real, they hurt your own feet and your own heart, but the mother is describing her life here, not her actual house.