Back to the Future: How Prison Taught How to Relearn my Relationship with Time

By the author using Midjourney

In 1981, the AIDS epidemic began, and I was living in ground zero, New York City. I had come out at a very young and precocious 16, and had enjoyed an extremely hedonistic life when I went to college at NYU — lots of drinking and sleeping around, all while still managing to do well in film school. At 21, the future was extremely bright for me until the…