In just three lines, the speaker describes a cycle of loss turning into control. Someone has "stripped" them of everything, and the result is a need to take charge of other people, to pull their strings the way a puppeteer moves a doll. The title "Puppeteer" gives the image, and the poem's unusual subtitle-like heading, "Ancient Artifact," hints that this pattern may be very old, something handed down and kept like a relic.
The speaker's tone is hard to pin down. "I can't help but" suggests they don't fully choose this behavior. It feels compulsive, even a little regretful, as if having nothing left made control the only thing worth reaching for. At the same time, there's no apology, just a flat statement of fact.
The mood is cold and uneasy. The lowercase letters and short lines make the voice sound stripped down too, mirroring what the speaker says was done to them. It's a poem about how people who have been hurt can end up hurting or manipulating others.