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I had this dream, many years ago now, where I was out in a field being tortured, or was about to be tortured.  I knew, specifically, my fingers would be the first target.  This seems to be a common place to start in torture…fingernails, fingers.  I was terrified in the dream, and shut my eyes as hard as I could, and remembered a place I felt safe.  I focused on and imagined the tiles on the floor of the bathroom of the house I was living in at the time.  I imagined placing my hands on the cool tiles.  I felt in every part of me that I was there in that bathroom.  When I opened my eyes, my hands were planted firmly on the tiles of the bathroom.  I was so relieved.  This happens to me often in dreams.  Body horror, terror, enough lucidity to escape a nightmare.  I emailed my husband this dream, before he was my husband.  He immediately noted the Lacanian concept of the fragmented body, or corps morcelé.  As for the song?  What are splinters, but fragments?  I do know that fragments and layers are not the same.

In the summer, the hottest days after we worked together, you would lead me around your garden.  The “garden tour”.  Usually with drinks in hand, or cigarettes, or both.  Your husband and your boyfriend were drinking, or smoking, or both, on the semi-screened in porch at the back of the house.  Your boyfriend said he’d finish the job but he never got around to it before everything was liquidated (as your ex-husband said).  Your ex-husband kept the house for awhile as you moved away slowly, to New Jersey (or New York?), with your parents and boyfriend or one or the other, we didn’t know, but your ex-husband kept receiving mail for you (and your boyfriend).  The address was either your parent’s or your boyfriend’s.

She lead me into a cave and told me to put the horse skull over my head to begin the initiation.  It was half a skull, technically, and I was supposed to fit the upper jaw over my head, but I couldn’t.  She laid me down on a pillow, and placed another on top of me before starting to bounce me.  I was surprised how high I bounced with each press of her hands, but then it settled down.  She was rocking and bouncing me on this pillow, and although I knew I wasn’t supposed to open my eyes I looked at her anyway.  She seemed to be in some sort of trance herself, looking off into the distance and tearing up, but also maybe laughing?  Suddenly she stopped her movements, looked directly at me and asked,

“How did you know about that map?  Where had you seen it before?”

I was flustered, and laughed before trying to find my answer.