Any python experts out there? - parsing tmsh list

Here is a piece of code I created recently, which works well for my needs. It might be updated with more 'declarative' words, where a word is a key and its omitted value is 'True':

declarative_keys = ['disabled', 'internal', 'ip-forward', 'vlans-enabled']


def parse_tmsh_one_line_output(out):
    """
    Parses output of a tmsh command produced in machine-readable format with the 'one-line' option
    @param out: Command output
    @return: Parsed dictionary
    """
    def parse_layer(tokens):
        """
        Parses one dictionary layer from the tokens
        @param list tokens: string tokens
        @return: parsed dictionary, leftover tokens
        """
        result = {}
        is_key = True  # The first token will be a key
        key = None
        while tokens:
            token = tokens.pop(0)
            if is_key:
                key = token
                if key in declarative_keys:
                    result[key] = True
                    continue
                if key == '}':
                    break
                is_key = False

            else:
                value = token
                is_key = True
                if value == '{':
                    result[key], tokens = parse_layer(tokens)
                    continue
                if value.startswith('"'):
                    tokens.insert(0, value[1:])
                    parts = []
                    while tokens:
                        token = tokens.pop(0)
                        if token.endswith('"') and not token.endswith('\\"'):
                            parts.append(token[:-1])
                            break
                        parts.append(token)
                    value = ' '.join(parts)
                result[key] = value.replace('\\"', '"')
        # end while
        return result, tokens

    _tokens = out.split(' ')
    parsed, _ = parse_layer(_tokens)
    return parsed