I think replacing “seem like” with “appear to be” would make the sentence worse. “Seem like” gives a more abstract feel to the comparison, which is well-suited

I think replacing “seem like” with “appear to be” would make the sentence worse. “Seem like” gives a more abstract feel to the comparison, which is well-suited to the sentence given that “the pen” does not refer to an individual pen and “a crutch” does not refer to literal crutches. “Appear to be” is also just more wordy. But “has”, “needs”, and “will” should probably be “had”, “needed”, and “would”, and then I would replace “were to live” with “lived”.