Six short lines, and nearly all the poem's force is saved for the last word: "easily." Lance Harbison's "Chosen" speaks from the wreckage of a relationship that the other person has decided to leave. The poem doesn't say whether it was love or friendship, though the hurt in the voice suggests something close. Its central idea is the gap between how much goes into choosing someone and how little it seems to take to walk away.
The opening three lines work like the first steps of an argument. "I chose you / You chose me / We chose each-other.." The pronouns swap places in the second line, like a handshake, and then merge into "We." The verb "chose" is repeated three times, and the title makes a fourth. Choosing implies will and intention, so the speaker is insisting that this bond was no accident and no slow drift. It was agreed on by both people. The plain, mostly one-syllable words add to the sense of a simple, undeniable fact.
The punctuation of that third line is worth a second look. "Each-other" is hyphenated, and the line ends with two dots, one fewer than a standard ellipsis. Whether or not this was intended, the effect is of a voice faltering, a pause before the poem changes direction.
The change arrives with "Look at all our memories." It is an imperative, half command and half plea. Strikingly, the memories are never described. There are no places, objects or moments, so the poem has almost no imagery in the usual sense. "Look at" treats the past as something that could be held up and examined, like exhibits in a case. By leaving them blank, the poem lets every reader fill them with their own. It is also a small coincidence of sound that "memories" begins with "me," and the long *e* returns in the final word, "easily." The speaker, the shared past and the accusation are quietly linked by one vowel.
The pronouns also tell a story. "Our" is the last shared word. In the final two lines the poem falls back into "tell me" and "you," and the "we" built so carefully at the start has come apart. It is also telling that the only time marker is "Now," which pivots the poem from the past tense of "chose" to the present of "can give up."
There is no rhyme scheme, only free verse, but the lines grow in a way that feels deliberate. Counting syllables gives roughly three, three, five, seven, six, and nine. The poem swells as it goes, as if calm assertion were turning into feeling that can't be contained. The last two lines run on from one into the other with "how is it / That," and the break after "it" makes the speaker seem to catch their breath. The grammar is spoken rather than polished, and there is no question mark at the end. That leaves it unclear whether this is really a question or an accusation dressed as one.
The word choices in the last line do the most damage. "Chose" is heavy and deliberate, while "give up" is the language of quitting a game or dropping a chore. The speaker is implying that the other person has treated something precious as if it were cheap. Then comes "easily," a soft, unstressed ending that offers no punch and simply trails away, the way hurt often does.
A careful reader might notice something else. "Easily" is only the speaker's judgement, made from the outside. We never hear the other person, and the poem gives no evidence that leaving was easy for them. The speaker's pain may be shaping what they see.
The poem's significance lies in how little it needs. In six lines it moves from assertion to evidence to accusation, and the form mirrors the emotion: the lines lengthen as the speaker's composure slips. Anyone who has felt that a decision was shared but its ending was not will recognise the voice. The title, "Chosen," names the state the speaker thought they were in. The poem is what is left when that certainty is taken away.