I think my best advice for you would be to watch lots and lots of videos of spoken word. Youtube (www.youtube.com) is a great place to actually hear spoken word and see how people enact their poetry at these events. A spoken word poet that always comes to my mind is Neil Hilborn. He suffers from OCD and has some very powerful and heartbreaking spoken word, such as this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnKZ4pdSU-s

Another poet you might want to look up is Joy Harjo. She is a Native American poet, singer, and saxophone player of the Mvskoke Nation. She has some great spoken word poetry and a band. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzwvCSl4njI

You can also try to use an online voice recording program like https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder or http://vocaroo.com/ or https://soundcloud.com/soundcloud and try recording yourself speaking your poetry the way you would want it spoken!

If you are able to use these programs, you can copy and paste a link to your recording for us to hear. Other people on the site have done this, such as weirdelf, so he might have some ideas for you too! If you're interested in something like that and you'd like some guidance, just let me know and I'd be happy to help.

Also, no worries and no need to apologize about not rhyming! A lot of people don't and just like you said, it doesn't always fit with spoken word.

My suggestion for this poem in particular is to really try to elaborate on the images.

Look at these lines, for example:

at that moment I felt real, sane, normal, I felt okay. then I noticed that we all just want to be okay because sometimes okay is enough.
saying that I feel 'good' is to general of a statement. saying that I feel angry, mad, joyful, sad, depressed... those words don't belong to me, I do not own those words, I have not earned those words therefore they are not mine to say, but... the word 'okay'...

How does normal or sane or okay feel? Is it warm? Soft? Bright? In other words, take the time to play with being a little abstract based on as many of your five senses as you like.

Why haven't you earned the words like angry? Why aren't you worthy of feeling the spectrum of human emotion? Is it just that little critical voice in the back of your head that wants to break you down? Is it other people telling you this or making you feel this unworthiness? Is this poem even autobiographical (about you?) or does it represent someone else?

Why can't others understand? Are we not capable of empathy? Is empathy not realistic enough because each of us is too selfish? Or maybe we all have too much going on to ever genuinely stop and listen? Can't we ask you what it's like for you? If we did, would you tell us? Would you ever want to use those images and senses to help us feel some semblance of what you feel?

Hope these questions get the ideas flowing for you! They are just thoughts for you to ponder; I'm not trying to criticize at all!

Kelsey

Prose poetry is a valid form for sure, but has never really become a mainstream art form. Are they short essays, streams of consciousness, parables? So many great poets have experimented with it. Part of the popularity of Rimbaud is no doubt that he kind of invented it. I would also suggest reading him. The other masters of this form I have enjoyed are Borges and also Pessoa, Latin American writers. To me they have in common with poetry that they can be read aloud or not, like poetry. When I read poetry or prose poems I read aloud to myself. When I read prose I do not.

There are no obviously no rules for poetry- Besides the rhymed history we have verse in which the words are crafted in a shape, such as by Apolinaire' Calligrams, free verse, and playing with punctuation such as by ee Commings, etc. So why should be rules for "prose poetry"?
All we can do is respond to each work in its own presentation to us.

I think you need to focus in on certain things your are saying here, and investigate them. For example: if the world was completely sad then there would be no such thing as 'dying from natural causes. I want to know more about this. I also need more on the lack of absolutes concerning truth. The philosopher Whitehead suggested that there are no truths, only half truths. Is this what your going to with accepting certain aspects of your reality, as okay?

I believe that for all poetic devises is that every word, every punctuation point is important. You write for yourself both as the writer and the reader, a second self analyzing the writing. As you continue to write, focus lazar sharp on your subject, and do not try encompass to many things at once. Take note of punctuation and where quotes begin and don't finish, or some sentences start with capitols and others don't. Every brush stroke counts, every note counts.
There are many very interesting and good starts in this work. There are many prose poems that can come out of it, each focused on one of your intuitions. We all know this is hard work. But in the end will help to give you the greatest gift, "to know thyself."