In majaz murakkab, the figurative employment belongs to the expression as a whole, not merely to one isolated word. A sentence grammatically shaped as a report can be used to perform another expressive function.
For instance, a poet may picture his emotions as journeying with one company while his body remains elsewhere. The lines have declarative form but serve to convey grief and regret rather than a neutral travel report.
The defining point is not sentence length; it is the transferred or nonstandard function of the complete utterance.