I want files on iCloud not on my Mac.

iCloud is meant to keep the folders on your Mac in sync with iCloud - so the Documents and Desktop folder and iCloud Drive will always be identical to the corresponding iCloud Drive folders. If you do not want that, do not enable iCloud Drive on your Mac, but use only the web interface at www.icloud.com to upload files to iCloud Drive. But the drawback will be, that the Finder can no longer show youth files on iCloud Drive. It will be much more clumsy than enabling iCloud Drive on the Mac.

Alternately, enable "Optimise Mac storage" for iCloud Drive. Then the Mac will automatically remove some of the mirrored shadow copies of iCloud Drive from your Mac. And you can remove additional downloads to free even more storage by ctrl-clicking the iCloud Drive files you want to remove - then use the command "remove Download". The files will remain on iCloud Drive, but be removed from your Mac.