Dear Reader,

As the end of the year looms, loose threads abound: rooms we need to clean, Cipher pieces we never wrote, people we never kissed, etc. There’s an urge to weave them all in, tie a neat knot, and cut the excess with a snip of scissors. But we can’t stop picking at them. It’s all unravelling.

Most of us here at Cipher are seniors, and every year before, the loose ends left at the end of May could be set aside and returned to in the fall. This spring, we’re starting to realize it won’t be possible to wrap it all into a neat bow. We wish we could buy more time, but some things will just be left unsaid, undone.

Our writers this issue tug at loose threads of what they carry from their parents, who they can’t help but love, and what it feels like to leave a place. The pages are littered with stray objects left behind: dusty puzzle pieces, a rock from an ex lover, a scarf perpetually in progress.

There is no clean break. We’ll stay in each other’s magnetic fields, orbiting further and further from each other. But even when the porches and dragonflies are far away, we’ll be left with a familiar feeling of something frayed and worn.

We are excited for so much, but we’re sad to leave Cipher behind. We’ll miss the vulnerability, humor, and downright weirdness we’ve found with each other in these pages. But this scarf won’t fall apart; new people will continue to pass through and pick up the needles.

We hope you enjoy the tapestry of this issue, woven from threads of different colors and sizes, tied together in a tangled knot. And if we don’t see you again, HAGS!

Yours, always,

Cipher