Close My Eyes And Leap
I wish I could fly
From this building
From this wall
And if I should try
Would you catch me
If I fall
Glinda the Good will never fly like Elphaba. Will never take off one day, never to return, arching across the sky, black on black. Glinda stays grounded, loved and adored and imprisoned here, by her own goddamned Goodness. She had a chance, once. For a fleeting second, when Elphie sat astride that broomstick and her eyes were aflame with zeal, with a courage that Glinda in that sickening moment realized she would never possess. They could have flown, together. Elphie could have shown her how. But Glinda needed the ground beneath her, needed to feel anchored in something other than the changing Ozian winds. So Elphaba flew solo, off to the West, winds tugging at her hair and clothing. Glinda went to the North, as far away as she could possibly get. There was soil beneath her feet and no harsh winds to mess up her carefully arranged hair. But she woke up every once in a while, and felt disorientated. In her dreams she sat behind Elphie, arms wrapped around her waist and her mouth pressing kisses against green skin, icy cold in the winter air. She woke up and gasped for oxygen because she couldn't breathe down here. She woke up, went about her day, but even under the clouds of perfume her attendants sprayed on her, she could still smell the sharp scent from the pine trees in Western Oz.
I can't look below me
Everyone else flies but Glinda. Elphie on her broomstick, the Wizard in his balloon, Dorothy in her house. She wonders what in Oz she did wrong. The irony is, of course, that Glinda was always the flighty one. Elphie was solid and firm, the one thing that kept her tethered. Whilst she never did anything wrong, she never really did anything right either.
I wish I could step
From this scaffold
Travelling to greet crowds of adoring Ozians, her bubble feels like a cage. She sings out the news of Elphaba's death, tweeting like a canary with its wings clipped, and her heart feels is leaden, as though she will never get off the ground again. The dress is weighing her down, layers of heavy, jewel-encrusted silk. When she looks in the mirror, the brightness hurts her eyes and she longs for Elphaba's shadowy form and cool green skin pressed against Glinda's overheated flesh. She wishes she could tell them all, right now, all the bloodthirsty citizens desperate for the grisly details of the Wicked Witch of the West's melting. She would tell them that making love to Elphaba felt like flying, that the kisses they trailed down each other's skin made her heart soar. That she knows how Elphie felt when she melted, because that's the way Glinda felt every time she looked at her.
She hears rumours in the crowd that some of them have taken souveniers -- a piece of her hat, one of those awful stockings Glinda bought her as a joke years ago and that Elphie became bizarrely attached to. Her breath catches in her throat as she wonders what has become of the broomstick. It should be mine, she wants to say. But she knows, without even trying, that she could never make it work. About all she could do with the Wicked Witch of the West's broomstick is sweep the floor. Elphie at least would have appreciated the irony.
There was a moment -- a fleeting moment, but a moment nevertheless -- that Glinda almost grabbed Dorothy by the shoulders and shook her, demanded that she give the shoes back. If they could take her to Kansas, they could take her to wherever Elphaba was. And they were her rightful property, after all.
Something will throw me
Curse at the wind storms
That October brings
I'd gladly swap places
She tried so hard to be good, flying in the face of Elphaba's spiky rebellion. There was a time when Glinda tried to change her, the cardinal sin with one's lover. If she could have anything, anything in all Oz right now, she would have reversed their roles. Have Elphie teach her to fly the way she did, unfettered by caring about what people thought of her. She can see the price of taking flight, of defying gravity like that. She knows that all it earns you is a bucket of water thrown by a girl from Kansas and a public celebration of your demise. For Glinda, anything would be better than the tomb Oz has become, revering Elphaba's power in death the way they never did in life. A few weeks after her death, the Wicked Witch didn't need the broomstick to fly. But she has to wonder. For all her fame and adulation, Glinda never did anything special. She just sat back and let terrible things happen to the person she loved. It occurs to her to wonder if a bucket of water would have the same effect on her.
I wish I could fly
from this building
From this wall
Glinda can't fly. But she can jump, and tumbling out of that damned bubble, the wind tossing her carefully arranged hair around, caressing her through the elaborate dress like a lover, like Elphaba... falling feels a lot like flying.
and if I should try
Would you catch me
If I fall