XMLStreamReader how to work with nested elements of same type

I'm working with the XMLStreamReader and parsing the following XML:

<root>
    <element>
        <attribute>level0</attribute>
        <element>
            <attribute>level1</attribute>
            <element>
                <attribute>level2</attribute>
            </element>
        </element>
    </element>
</root>

I'm building out my XMLStreamReader:

XMLStreamReader reader = XMLInputFactory.newInstance().createXMLStreamReader(
                new ByteArrayInputStream(document.getBytes()));

Unfortunately, when I get to the first closing element tag with reader.next();, I get the following exception:

javax.xml.stream.XMLStreamException: ParseError at [row,col]:[7,14]
Message: XML document structures must start and end within the same entity. 

Is there a way to override the default behavior of the XMLStreamReader to get around with this?