diff --git a/moto/dynamodb2/parsing/reserved_keywords.py b/moto/dynamodb2/parsing/reserved_keywords.py
index d82b16e9..6a14baac 100644
--- a/moto/dynamodb2/parsing/reserved_keywords.py
+++ b/moto/dynamodb2/parsing/reserved_keywords.py
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+from moto.utilities.utils import load_resource
+from pkg_resources import resource_filename
+
+
 class ReservedKeywords(list):
     """
     DynamoDB has an extensive list of keywords. Keywords are considered when validating the expression Tree.
@@ -18,12 +22,7 @@ class ReservedKeywords(list):
         """
         Get a list of reserved keywords of DynamoDB
         """
-        try:
-            import importlib.resources as pkg_resources
-        except ImportError:
-            import importlib_resources as pkg_resources
-
-        reserved_keywords = pkg_resources.read_text(
-            "moto.dynamodb2.parsing", "reserved_keywords.txt"
+        reserved_keywords = load_resource(
+            resource_filename(__name__, "reserved_keywords.txt"), as_json=False
         )
         return reserved_keywords.split()
diff --git a/moto/utilities/utils.py b/moto/utilities/utils.py
index 255d2919..14d73e98 100644
--- a/moto/utilities/utils.py
+++ b/moto/utilities/utils.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ def random_string(length=None):
     return random_str
 
 
-def load_resource(filename):
+def load_resource(filename, as_json=True):
     """
     Open a file, and return the contents as JSON.
     Usage:
@@ -23,4 +23,4 @@ def load_resource(filename):
     load_resource(resource_filename(__name__, "resources/file.json"))
     """
     with open(filename, "r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
-        return json.load(f)
+        return json.load(f) if as_json else f.read()