In the end it was obvious
that you had lost control
of your powers,

that a reversal
of polarity had taken
place, that your soul

was no longer
able to keep
its compass aligned.

Master of magnetism,
manipulator of metal, seething
dynamo pendent

from an electrified
web of your own
spinning.  You could attract

or repulse at will,
forge steel with a thought
or turn stone to ****,

and on some nights, you would lift
your hands and orchestrate
the hiss of the northern lights.

But even a superconductor
requires stability, down
in its inner coils

so when your stomach
began to brim
with starfire and steam

and you waved your hands,
your blood bubbled
into hot little ***** of iron

filings, and ricocheted under
your skin like the remanent shreds
of lost continents.

We begged you
stop, but your hands moved
again, slow and heavy

along the curves
of your throat
and so the fields went feral

until your fingernails spewed
a red fog  
and the metal ripped

from your dry flesh
trailing flame like a meteor.
Still your hands

stirred, tendons snapping
as your salt formed
at the joints, snarling

into tiny effigies
of the dead that came
before you.  The same

as you.  And you were left
a shrunken husk,
as paper drifting

on the thermals, gaping
dripping and brittled, scalded
bone, swollen void.

You were still there
but your eyes flashed pyrite,
and there was dust

on your breath.  We spoke
of iron calcium potassium
your depleted core

sagging into itself
like an ancient mine
stripped of ore.  

Then there was nothing
to talk about, save
the inexorable call.

And when it came, I hurled
the comics away and thought
perhaps mutants are real after all.