/lit/ - Literature

I wrote a short story for a competition my university is organizing.
I am hoping for the first prize for the 500 bucks promised, you could say I'm a mercenary writer.
Jokes aside, this is my first "serious" text, and so I kind of shoved every idea that means something to me inside it, be it in a throwaway sentence or in a serious paragraph. But it's just 8 pages and I feel like I heavily saturated the text, it has become schizo tier, everything is basically a metaphor for something and I feel like I should tone it down a notch or two.
Can there less be more? Can a text with less ongoing themes be more meaningful than one chock full of them? Or should I just go ahead and send my unfiltered, unrepentant ramble and hope for the best?
Upon a second read, for the first time ever, I don't feel like cringing at my own words, so that's a good sign at least.