Try starting your pod with a =pod line. This snippet from the Switch source will explain:

my $pod_or_DATA = qr/ ^=(?:head[1-4]|item) .*? $CUT
                    | ^=pod .*? $CUT
                    | ^=for .*? $EOP
                    | ^=begin \s* (\S+) .*? \n=end \s* \1 .*? $EOP
                    | ^__(DATA|END)__\n.*
                    /smx;
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