i used the following code

String lines[] = loadStrings("cycles.txt");
void setup() {
println("there are " + lines.length + " lines");
}
void draw() {
}

with cycles.txt in sketch DATA folder, but P5 didn't find it.
i monitord file access using procMon and saw P5 was looking for the file
at following
(i simplified the) locations.
cycles.txt p5 root solved this.

.\processing-1.1\null\data\cycles.txt
.\processing-1.1\cycles.txt
%TEMP%\build8230095936349216342.tmp\data\cycles.txt
.\processing-1.1\lib\data\cycles.txt
%temp%\cycles.txt
.\processing-1.1\lib\cycles.txt
.\processing-1.1\null\data\cycles.txt
.\processing-1.1\cycles.txt


win7/64bit

never use loadStrings() outside of setup(), draw(), or a function called by
them.